On Thursday, Bitcoin mining suffered a hit after the internet in Kazakhstan was shut down due to increasing unrest.

Violent skirmishes between demonstrators, police, and the army have rocked the central Asian nation in recent days. The protests began over the weekend in the country's west, following a sudden increase in the country's fuel problem, and soon spread across the country.

On Wednesday, the internet was turned down across the country. The blackout's impacts expanded further since Kazakhstan is considered a major player in the bitcoin world.

According to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Kazakhstan became the world's second-largest center for bitcoin mining after the United States. According to Fortune, the country hosted 18 percent of global bitcoin mining in August.

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Bitcoin's computational capacity plummeted within hours of the outage.

Here’s what you need to know

High-powered computers, usually located in data centers across the world, compete to solve hard mathematical riddles in a highly energy-intensive process to create Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The bigger the number of miners on the network, the more computer power is required to mine new bitcoin. If miners leave the network, the hashrate drops, making it easier for the surviving miners to create new coins.

According to data from mining business BTC.com, hashrate at major crypto mining pools – groups of miners in different places that work together to produce bitcoin – was down 14% from Tuesday to Thursday.

Bitcoin's price fell as well, despite the fact that a decrease in hashrate does not always imply a rise in price. On Thursday, the cryptocurrency plummeted below $43,000, touching multi-month lows.

The incident highlighted Kazakhstan's importance in the bitcoin ecosystem.