Iceland reportedly wants to plant more corn and drive out Bitcoin miners, while the northern European nation refocuses on food security and energy stability.
Cheap hydropower has driven Bitcoin miners to Iceland, making it both the world's largest energy producer and producer of Bitcoin's per capita hashing rate.
"Bitcoin is a problem all over the world," - Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir told the Financial Times in a March 23 report. "Data centers in Iceland consume a significant portion of our green energy."
Jakobsdóttir wants to reallocate renewable energy from cryptocurrency miners to power other industries and housing for the country's 375,000 citizens. Icelandic bitcoin miners reportedly consume more energy than households, causing electricity shortages.
The new proposal would mean a push for industrial wind power to advance carbon neutrality plans, but "Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, which consume a lot of our energy, are not part of that mission," Jakobsdóttir said.
Meanwhile, Jakobsdóttir said Iceland is starting to grow corn because the country is "very dependent on corn imports."
Agriculture in Iceland "is not very good" because glaciers cover "a large part of the country," she - she said, but trade disruptions and farmer protests have created pressure to reduce dependence on imports.
