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Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has urged his fellow citizens to stay in their homeland and mine cryptocurrency instead of going abroad to Poland and Germany and opt for low-paying farming jobs.
Alexander Lukashenko Wants Belarusians to Mine Cryptocurrency
During the opening of the Petrikovsky mining and processing plant, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko requested the employees to move to cryptocurrency mining using the surplus electricity available in the country.
Pointing to the fact that Belarusian workers are mostly wanted for low-paying farming jobs, Lukashenko urged the citizens to utilize the abandoned industrial sites and use the country’s available energy to build greenhouses.
“There are a lot of abandoned industrial facilities in this area. A lot of energy and electricity related businesses can be created. Do something about electricity. Finally, mining cryptocurrency, whatever it is called. There is enough electricity in this country. You can do that with the surplus of electricity you use.”
The Petrikovsky plant is the largest investment project of state-owned Belaruskali, which is one of the largest global producers of potash fertilizers. Lukashenko added that foreigners only want Belarusians to "pick strawberry.", implying they are better off mining Bitcoin than moving abroad for farming jobs.
"We must understand, they are not waiting for us anywhere. And if someone is waiting...maybe on the plantations, as Ukranians often say, the Poles there or the Germans have to squirm, pick strawberries."
Belarus Embraces Crypto-Related Activities
In April 2019, Lukashenko offered to use the energy from the country’s first nuclear power plant in the Grodno region, right next to the border with Lithuania to mine digital assets and trade them.
Belarus legalized cryptocurrency-related activities including mining back in 2017. In November 2020, the country’s largest bank Belarusbank launched a payment service that allows users to buy and sell digital currencies using Visa Card. For now, the country has only a single locally registered cryptocurrency exchange called Currency.com.