Laos’s deputy energy minister told Reuters that the country is considering cutting off electricity to cryptocurrency miners in the first quarter of 2026, hoping to redirect its domestic power to sectors that contribute more to economic growth. After a 2021 government policy sparked a rapid expansion in mining activities, crypto operators flocked to the Southeast Asian landlocked nation for its cheap non-fossil energy.
The country’s Deputy Energy Minister Chanthaboun Soukaloun said on Thursday that the government now prioritizes supplying electricity to industries such as artificial intelligence data centers, metal refining, and electric vehicles. Soukaloun said that Laos has already started reducing electricity supplies to crypto miners, who currently consume about 150 megawatts of power, down from a peak of 500 megawatts in 2021 and 2022, a 70% decrease.
“Unlike supplying power to industrial or commercial consumers, cryptocurrency does not create value,” Soukaloun told Reuters. “We had proposed to the government back in 2021 that we could supply power to crypto miners because of a domestic power surplus.” He added that the industry creates few jobs and has no supply chain that benefits the economy.
Soukaloun said Laos initially planned to cut off supplies this year but was able to continue due to abundant rainfall, which increased hydropower generation and allowed for increased exports to neighboring Thailand and Vietnam. “I think by the end of the first quarter of 2026, we might completely stop (supplying electricity to cryptocurrency),” he said on the sidelines of an ASEAN energy ministers’ meeting.