The Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try yes­ter­day con­firmed that it is in the process of re­view­ing this coun­try’s leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy frame­works to un­der­stand the pos­si­bil­i­ties for a cryp­tocur­ren­cy sec­tor in T&T.

The Trade Min­istry said it is work­ing with the rel­e­vant stake­hold­er min­istries and oth­er bod­ies dur­ing this process.

As it stands there is no pol­i­cy po­si­tion on cryp­to­min­ing at this time in T&T, the min­istry stat­ed in a re­lease yes­ter­day.

The Trade Min­istry said how­ev­er that the on­go­ing re­view would al­low for the ap­pro­pri­ate reg­u­la­tions and process­es re­lat­ed to cryp­to­min­ing be­ing de­vel­oped.

This an­nounce­ment comes on the heels of Guardian Me­dia re­ports that con­glom­er­ate ANSA McAL, Hol­land-based Bit­fury, and Eu­rope’s largest dig­i­tal as­set firm Coin­shares In­ter­na­tion­al are propos­ing a bit­coin-min­ing farm at the Tamana In­Tech Park.

The bit­coin-min­ing farm project, called Trin­imine, is a pro­posed da­ta cen­tre with a max­i­mum ca­pac­i­ty of 300 MW and a to­tal in­vest­ment of US$ 0.5 bil­lion.

The plan is to build the fa­cil­i­ty in a phased ba­sis be­gin­ning with a 70 MW fa­cil­i­ty with an in­vest­ment of US$100 mil­lion.

“The Min­istry wish­es to ad­vise that there are some pro­posed cryp­tocur­ren­cy min­ing projects cur­rent­ly un­der con­sid­er­a­tion by the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of T&T. These are all at an en­quiry stage and sev­er­al stake­hold­ers are in­volved in the de­lib­er­a­tions,” the re­lease stat­ed.

The min­istry stat­ed that cryp­tocur­ren­cies, which are dig­i­tal fi­nan­cial as­sets, and cryp­to­min­ing have grown over the last decade.

“The Min­istry notes the con­cerns with these op­er­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly the util­i­sa­tion of a dig­i­tal dis­trib­u­tive ledger for the pur­pose of a sov­er­eign plat­form, dis­tinc­tive from a reg­u­lat­ed and in­ter­me­di­ate cen­tralised au­thor­i­ty,” it stat­ed.

“The Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to give at­ten­tion to in­ter­ests in this area and work in tan­dem with all stake­hold­ers to make the best de­ci­sion to en­sure trans­paren­cy, pro­tec­tion of as­sets and mu­tu­al ben­e­fit to all cit­i­zens,” the re­lease stat­ed.

Among the is­sues be­ing dis­cussed to get the project off the ground is a pow­er pur­chase agree­ment.