For the first time, Russia ranks second among the countries with the highest contribution to bitcoin mining. The highest percentage was previously that this country was in third place, after the United States and Kazakhstan.
As mentioned local media The Russians, between January and March 2023 Russia has an average of 1 gigawatt of electrical power applied exclusively to bitcoin mining and cryptocurrencies. This allowed it to rank above countries like Canada and Malaysia, and Latin America Argentina and Paraguay. All between 100 MW and 400 MW.
According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, in 2020 Russia was part of a triad that accounted for 65% of all bitcoin hashes, along with China and the United States.
Reasons for the growth of bitcoin mining in Russia
Experts from the Russian mining company BitRiver believe that the recent growth in bitcoin mining in Russia is As a result of the restrictive measures taken by the Government of Kazakhstan in 2022.
In March of last year, CriptoNoticias reported that the Kazakh government had scrapped more than 100 mining farms. The main reason they gave for taking such measures was the energy crisis the nation was going through. Later, at the end of the year, the Parliament of Kazakhstan implemented measures to protect the national electricity system from illegal mining and established mining licenses.
Alisa Tsukanova, Marketing Director of the EMCD mining pool, predicts that cryptocurrency mining in Russia will continue to expand. According to her, there are regions in this country It offers cheap electricity and a favorable climatemeans savings when investing in refrigeration equipment.
However, the opposition of entities such as the Russian Central Bank to promoting bitcoin mining on national territory could be one of the obstacles to the expansion of this activity.
