Pretty sure all of you already know what's going down in Kazakhstan. But if you don't, I'll try and explain, keep in mind I'm not a journalist.
A couple of days ago, Kazakhstan's government removed gas price limits in attempt to "find alignment with the conditions of oil pricing in the market", this lead to gas prices practically doubling over night and generating mass unrest, which has only gotten worse due to a somewhat terrible government response.
Thousands of people have been arrested, dozens have been reported dead and at least 60 have been sent to the hospital in intensive care.
I know what it's like to have nationwide protests over pricing, Brazil did this in 2014 due to a raise in bus ticket prices, those protests ballooned to encompass other political issues such as widespread corruption and directly lead to the impeachment of then president Dilma Rouseff in 2016.
However, things here did not take such a violent turn with only minor skirmishes between rioters and police, with most protests being peaceful. Those protests have had major repercutions in our country, with the election of a populist "anti-corruption" right wing candidate happening in 2018.
But in my opinion, what's happening in Kazakhstan could be even more impactful for residents and the world as a whole. When things turn violent, repercussions are inevitable, responses from other major powers are pretty much guaranteed and it has been no different now.
Specially when it comes to Russia.
Russia has deployed peacekeeping forces in the form of paratroopers over Kazakhstan, this doesn't surprise me much as Russia is a huge player in Central Asia with most countries there relying on it for support and Russia definitely relying on them for resources. It'll be a matter of time until we find out how peaceful these peacekeeping forces truly are, but I sincerely hope that it doesn't come to the worst and things are able to get better, it's always hard to tell when it comes to situations like these.
Kazakhstan always struck as one of the better places to live in Central Asia and it honestly makes me sad to see all of this happening there. It could be a blip that we all forget about once things come back to normal, or it could be history unfolding itself.
The thing most people are focusing on right now is how the government added fire to the flames by shutting down the internet, a move that is undeniably stupid during times of mass unrest.
Kazakhstan was the 2nd largest crypto-miner in the world, it was where a good chunk of miners went to after China banned crypto-mining due to energy concerns, couple that with how cheap energy is in Kazakhstan, it was a good place to set up shop. Now with the internet down, the hash rate of a good chunk of coins has plummeted, but I've seen none take a harder hit than bitcoin, which also happens to still be the biggest coin in the market right now and easily affects everything else in the crypto world.
Whilst it's not wrong to speculate about prices and if we should buy or not, it's still good to think about the actual news itself and keep the numbers on our screen minimized to catch up on what's going, at least after you invest, because I know I'm not taking my eyes out of the market right now too.
Sincerely hope that the Kazakh people can come out of this one without much harm, we can only imagine what they're going through right now.
It's also going to be great to see them come back into the crypto world and have their internet access restored, as daily life is practically impossible for some people nowadays who rely on the web for work.