Crypto Miner in Lebanon Not Receiving Power Secretly

The Litani river Authority operates three major hydro-power stations.
Lebanon is facing a critical financial crisis.

The beginning of 2022 was not in favour of some specified villages of Lebanon because, in January 2022, the police department of Lebanon conducted a joint operation with Litani river Authority(LRA) and raided several villages in search of crypto miners.

As per data, the mountainous Chouf Region was found generating electricity and supplying it to the crypto miners secretly, and one of the reasons that crypto miners were operating their operations was the cheap power supply of Lebanon.

Lebanon is globally famous for its cheap electricity production. The machines and computers miners use consume huge amounts of electricity, and basic or established crypto miners can’t run the operations at a lower cost.

These activities are increasing in the country because the nation has a weak financial structure. Some reports note that it’s difficult for common people to access electricity. If the citizen does not have enough money to pay for generator operators, they must spend 20-21 hours without electricity.

The Litani river Authority operates three major hydro-power stations, which can provide 20 hours of electricity to around 200 villages. These giant dams have attracted crypto miners towards them, and now miners are trying to establish them in these areas for cheap electricity.

Georgio Abou Gebrael, a Lebanese architect, explained to CNBC, “The use of USDT is widespread. There are a lot of coffee shops, restaurants, and electronics stores that accept USDT as payment, so that’s convenient if I need to spend not in fiat, but from my bitcoin savings.

The government has much bigger problems right now than to worry about some stores accepting cryptocurrency.”

Citizens’ high interest in USDT and other coins caused hyperinflation in the country. As a result, the bank restricts customers from withdrawing cash, which seems to be closed in the country.

Some reliable data states that more than 70 percent of the nation’s population uses USDT stablecoins as the payment mode in restaurants and shops.

Lebanon was one of the most developed countries in the world, independent on 22 November 1943 over French rule. The main source of income in the country is service, and the banking sector contributes 70% of the country’s gross national product.

The crypto-dependent group of people is from different spaces and their requirements being fulfilled in crypto made them adopt it. People see payments from their international clients in crypto, some are mining crypto assets, and some are looking at it as a store of value saving their wealth from depreciating drastically. When the country’s official currency and economy are making common people’s lives worse, crypto comes for them as a hope.