The dictatorial president of Belarus has promised to build a nuclear-powered data center for cryptocurrency mining, reports Miner Update.
President Alexander Lukashenko has been pushing the Belarusian technology sector. In December 2017, at the height of the crypto bull market, he signed into effect 36 separate tax exemptions for foreign tech companies operating in Belarus—for example, they face zero VAT and zero corporation tax, reports News BTC. ICOs and cryptocurrency mining would also be tax free.
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In a speech announcing the policy, Lukashenko typically praised himself and addressed his fellow citizens as if they were kids. “You are my children. I’ve created you with my own hands as well as I could,” he said. “You wanted cryptocurrency, crypto exchanges, crypto mining, and the rest. You wanted to set up the farms… Now you are grown up and can suggest where we move on from here. We are going to move in this direction as effectively and as far as you would like”.
Plans for the data center and cryptocurrency mining operation reportedly emerged from discussions with Belarus’s small tech sector. The proposed site for the mining center is next to the only nuclear power plant in Belarus.
Belarus has been economically dependent on oil refining. Lukashenko has been trying to diversify towards tech.
Lukashenko has been president of Belarus since 1994. He served as a deputy when the country was under Soviet control—he was the only deputy to vote against independence from the Soviet Union. The country has been called “Europe’s last dictatorship.”