"Bitcoin" is one of the crypto assets known for its large price movements.
It hit a record high in November last year, but in 2022 it plummeted early in the new year.
One of the factors is the name of a surprising country.
What is that country?
(Neil Kato, Reporter, Ministry of Economic Affairs)
The price of "Bitcoin", which can be said to be a representative of crypto assets, has dropped significantly.
According to BitFlyer, a major exchange company, the price of 1 Bitcoin exceeded 7 million yen in November 2021 and reached a record high.
After that, it fell due to the movement of US monetary tightening, but as of December 27, it was about 5.9 million yen.
However, it fell below the 5 million yen level on January 6th of the new year and dropped to about 4.7 million yen on the 10th.
Compared to the end of December, it will drop by as much as 20%.
Why did it plummet?
When I asked market participants, the name of a country emerged.
It is "Kazakhstan" in Central Asia.
In Kazakhstan, protests began on January 2nd, triggered by the rise in fuel prices, and spread to various places such as Almaty, the largest city.
In response, the government has been pursuing an operation to wipe out the act of terrorism, and it is said that both demonstrators and security officials have died.
このカザフの国内情勢の混乱が、ビットコインの急落につながったというのです。
歴史的にはシルクロードのオアシスとして栄え、現在では石油や天然ガス、ウランなどの資源大国として知られていますが、実はカザフは世界2位のビットコインの「採掘国」でもあるのです。
ビットコインなどの暗号資産は、取り引きデータの安全性を確保するために暗号化され、世界中のネットワークに分散して管理されています。
取り引きの際には、膨大なデータを処理する必要があります。
このデータ処理を行う事業者は手数料として、新たに発行される暗号資産が得られることになっています。
こうした作業は、「マイニング（採掘）」と呼ばれています。
イギリスのケンブリッジ大学は、世界のどこでマイニングが盛んに行われているのか、マイニングマップを公表しています。
それによるとカザフスタンは、アメリカに次ぐ、マイニング大国なのです（2021年8月時点）。
The table above shows the estimated market share of mining in each country.
By the way, Japan is 0.3%.
So why is Kazakh's share so high?
..
The trigger was the movement of neighboring China.
China occupied 70% of the world market share in the field of mining at the beginning of 2020, but the Chinese government made services related to crypto assets illegal because it disturbed the economic order and was also used for criminal acts. Totally prohibited.
For this reason, China's market share has become zero since July 2021.
In response to this, the destination for Chinese mining companies was neighboring Kazakhstan.
According to JETRO = Japan External Trade Organization, a major move has taken place last year, with a major Chinese operator announcing that it will ship 2,600 mining-only computers to Kazakhstan.
Since mining consumes a large amount of electricity, the cheap electricity prices of Kazakhstan, a resource-rich country, also attracted businesses.
The Kazakh government also positioned it as an important industry, but due to the large movement of mining companies, electricity consumption increased by 7% in one year (as of November), causing power outages in some areas. It is said that it has become.
And, due to the turmoil in the domestic situation this time, the connection to the Internet was cut off all over Kazakhstan.
If you don't connect to the internet, you can't mine or settle Bitcoin.
This led to a plunge early in the new year.
On the 11th of this week, even over the situation in Ukraine, discussions between senior US and Russian government officials did not progress, and there were scenes where the yen and Swiss franc, which are considered safe assets, were bought.
These geopolitical risks are also likely to be a major factor in this market.
Scheduled to pay attention
The Bank of Japan's monetary policy meeting will be held, and the economic and price outlook "outlook report" will be released on the 18th.
Against the backdrop of rising raw material prices, prices of various products around us are rising one after another, and discussions will be held in the direction of raising the price outlook for 2022 to the 1% level.
Since rising prices will affect the future of the Bank of Japan's monetary policy, we are paying attention to how far we can raise our outlook.
In addition, China, which is concerned about economic slowdown, will announce GDP on the 17th, and Turkey's central bank, which is experiencing record inflation, will hold a monetary policy committee on the 20th.