The Norwegian government intends to put an end to cryptocurrency mining in the country as an undesirable activity, writes VG.

“That is why we are introducing a law that will, for the first time, regulate the data center industry,” said Minister of Digitization Karianne Tung.

Registration will require providing information about who is behind the enterprise, as well as disclosing the services provided.

“It is very important to get a good understanding of what services are offered in these data centers. We need socially useful projects that are necessary for the infrastructure,” explained Minister of Energy Terje Oslund.

According to officials, the goal is to cut off undesirable cryptocurrency mining activities, as they are associated with:

• greenhouse gas emissions;
• an unregulated industry that is not being controlled in any way.

They noted that the data center industry in the country is welcomed, but the government wants more control.

Tung and Oslund believe that the country is not interested in actors who simply want to buy cheap electricity. However, each specific case will remain at the discretion of local authorities.

“Data centers today are part of Norway’s public infrastructure and are welcomed. For example, secure storage of images or messages,” said Oslund.

The new rules will help identify undesirable activities related to the mining of digital assets, officials believe.

“How many data centers are currently engaged in cryptocurrency mining in Norway? We do not know this. But now we will get an answer to this question,” said Tung.

Recall that in 2021, the Norwegian government expressed readiness to support the initiative of Swedish regulators to ban cryptocurrency mining on the Proof-of-Work algorithm at the EU level.

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