Kuwait Government Issues Warning as 1,000 Sites Found Illegally Mining Cryptocurrency

The Kuwait minister of the Interior has given a warning against cryptocurrency -mining, after data from electricity consumption has shown that more than 1,000 locations in the golf nation can have mining installations.

Crypto -mybouw has been illegal in Kuwait since July 2023, when the Capital and Markets Authority forbade all cryptocurrency activities, including transfers and trade.

The detection of abnormal electricity use has led the Ministry of the Interior to re -confirm this prohibition and writes in an announcement that mining is an “activity without a permit and is a direct violation of the province’s law”.

Nevertheless, Kuwait has some of the lowest electricity prices in the world, and it seems that the relatively low energy costs for some residents are too much of a temptation, whereby the government emphasizes different negative results.

As the ministry writes: “[mining] Also causes power outages in residential, commercial and service areas, in a way that pays a threat to public safety and disrupts the provision of regular essential services. “

The government department – responsible for police and public safety – also used its warning to “call offers to remedy their positions immediately”, which threaten the prosecution “in accordance with the applicable laws” if they don’t.

The warning from the Ministry of the Interior is part of a joint effort with various other government agencies, including the Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy, which has also been able to identify an extremely high electricity use in 100 houses in the Al-Wafra region.

According to the spokesperson for the Ministry, Fatima Jawhar Hayat, the marked houses show consistent and abnormally high use 24 hours a day, which is different from the fluctuating patterns that are typical of houses.

“In some cases the consumption 100,000 kilowatt hours in March 2025-Bijna exceeded 20 times the typical use of neighboring houses,” she said.

It is not clear what happened to the occupants of the 100 identified houses, but Hayat added that the ministry will continue to follow the electricity consumption in Kuwait.

According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, Kuwait accounted for 0.05% of Bitcoin’s total hashrate in 2022, one year before the financial regulator forbade cryptocurrency mining.

Although there are no reliable data on crypto ownership in Kuwait since the 2023 prohibition, there are indications that the Kuwait public continues to trade digital assets.

Recently, a fraudulent token called Bitcoin Kuwait led Retail investors lost around $ 40 million, after it collapsed in price almost immediately after the launch in January.

This fraud was the subject of public complaints from researcher Dr. Safaa Zaman on X, who emphasized the lack of enforcement of Kuwait on cryptocurrency activities and called for legislation to strengthen the government’s position on crypto.

She wrote: “Where is the supervision, where is the legislation and where is the fraud?”

Published by Stacy Elliott.