In North Kosovo, Mining for Bitcoin on ‘Free’ Electricity

He said 'No', only to be approached again earlier this year, this time for the annex of his house.

"They asked if they could put in 15 machines," said Selim, who asked that his real name not be used. "First they offered me 15 euros per unit [per month], then they increased it to 20 euros."

Selim refused again, but many others have not. And now the hum of cryptomining has become commonplace in northern Kosovo, where since the 1998-99 Kosovo war ethnic Serbs have resisted integration with the rest of predominantly ethnic Albanian-populated Kosovo.

And there's a good reason why it has become so popular: for 22 years, northern Kosovo has paid nothing for electricity, the vital component of crytomining.

The practice has become so widespread, BIRN has found that even remote villages, as well as urban centres, have become hubs for the production of Bitcoin.

Tens of millions of euros

Kosovo's northern town of Leposavic. Photo: BIRN

Taking advantage of their limbo status since the end of the war and Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence, Serbs in the northern municipalities of Leposavic, Mitrovica, Zubin Potok and Zvecan have not paid an electricity bill in more than two decades.

According to a Radio Free Europe report, the cost of the energy consumed in these municipalities is around 12 million euros per year.

Up until 2017, citizens elsewhere in Kosovo were billed an extra 3.5 per cent to make up the shortfall until a court ruled this was illegal.

Last week, the new Kosovo government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti instructed the country's public transmission enterprise, KOSTT, to cover the unpaid bills from its own revenues for another six months while the government comes up with...