Miners slow down clocks in Europe?

From environmental destruction to the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, cryptocurrency mining has been accused of a multitude of sins. But time dilation is something new, which at first glance seems completely impossible. In Central Europe, something strange is happening now: the clocks are slowing down, and not by fractions of a second, but by whole minutes.

Is mining to blame for this, or is it just a scapegoat?

Miners can slow down the clock
Since mid-January, the European Continental Energy System has been experiencing anomalies. The European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) reports that this huge belt of 25 countries, stretching from Spain to Turkey and from Poland to the Netherlands, has undergone “continuous system frequency deviation from an average of 50 Hz”.

Power deviations that affected electrical frequencies caused a strange knock effect on clock delays, which calculate the exact time based on the frequency of the power system. As a result, they work “with a delay of about six minutes.”

It is unclear exactly how this slowdown manifests itself, for how long, and whether it is possible to manually adjust this watch to show the correct time. Clearly, the electricity leak responsible for this anomaly is huge: 113 GWh, which is the equivalent of six months of electricity consumption in Greenland.

Red lines show the main transmission lines in the European region

Search for the “criminal”

ENTSO-E is clearly unhappy with the lack of power and strange side effects. Although the organization is “seething with discontent,” there is nothing it can do. The situation, ENTSO-E admits, is largely political, which will require the cooperation of countries suspected of causing a huge energy leak.

On the Swiss Grid website, the current frequency deviation of 50 Hz can be viewed in real time. At the time of publication, this value is at 49.970 Hz, causing a network deviation of 345 seconds.

The site explains: “There are many more clocks that run based on the frequency of the electrical network. If the frequency is higher, they go faster. If the frequency is lower, they go slower. “

Where does the electricity go?

The question of who is pumping electricity on such a huge scale remains unresolved.

It could be a secret project involving a particle accelerator similar to the Large Hadron Collider. It could be government obscenity or incompetence. Or it could be miners. Suspicions fall on the latter option.

The cost of electricity in Serbia and Kosovo is one of the cheapest in Europe, while the price of mining one bitcoin in these regions is estimated at $ 3,133, which is about the same as in China.
ENTSO-E writes:

The first step in solving the problem is to stop the deviation. The second step is to make up for the missing amount of energy.

At the moment, no changes and plans concern miners, but until the culprit is identified, a huge shortage of energy leaves miners under suspicion.