Representatives of the prosecutor’s office assure that the Chinese citizens organized illegal activities to mine cryptoassets at a steel plant in the city of Zliten. This, according to law enforcement authorities, caused significant damage to state and public interests.
In 2018, the Central Bank of Libya officially banned the mining and circulation of crypto-assets within the country until specific national laws on the regulation of. However, the low cost of electricity in Libya at $0.004 per kilowatt hour makes the country an attractive jurisdiction for crypto-mining operations. Journalists from The New Arab have conducted data showing that Libya accounts for about 0.6% of global bitcoin mining. This exceeds many times the achievements of all other miners on the African continent.
Earlier Bloomberg reported that the protracted investigation into the corruption scandal with Petroleos de Venezuela and the subsequent ban on domestic cryptocurrency mining led to the mass closure of local mining companies.