- Authorities of Irkutsk, Russia, have fined heavily on crypto miners.
- Power utilities have also filed hundreds of legal actions.
Crypto mining is now a successful and profit-making business for several companies established in the energy-rich regions of Russia and a secondary income source for average citizens of Russia. Even though there are normally lesser energy rates for commercial purposes, most of those have desired to mint virtual coins at a lower cost of household electricity, surprisingly stolen electricity also.
In Irkutsk, a Siberian oblast with ample electricity resource, where costs were as low as $0.01 per kWh in rural areas, have been going after illicit mining actions. The latter has generated a jump in consumption of domestic and commercial areas, reportedly heading to continuous breakdown and downfall across the region.
Only this year, the regional energy distribution firms have filed 400 legal actions opposing miners who illegally got the benefit of sponsored power meant for the residents or unlawfully connected their equipment to the grid.
At the same time, courts have charged fines of about 100 million rubles (about $1.7 million at the time of writing). As per the report published in January, the use of Irkutskenergosbyt was able to recover alone the amount of about 63 million rubles for illegal miners.
Over 9,000 units of mining hardware were disassembled and detached.
In the recent raids, over 9,000 mining hardware units were disassembled and detached from the thermal power plant of both Baikalsk and Ust-Ordynsky, the local office of the Prosecutor revealed this week, cited by the Federal Press portal. Closing the underground mining fields will help in avoiding accidents at the heat supply facility.
Mining is one of those crypto activities that expect extensive governance in Russia, with many officers in Moscow believing that it should be acknowledged as an industrial activity and should be charged according to it while quoting the benefits like low-cost power and chill climate of Russia.
In March 2022, the Russian Ministry of Energy advised establishing regional energy quotas for miners.
Meanwhile, home mining is a process that the officials want to put a break on. Although an official from the finance ministry has specified that the government finds no valid point to call a ban on it, an industry community of electricity suppliers offered measures to check mining in cellars and garages, and the state’s anti-monopoly agency advised the establishment of increased power costs for un-professional crypto miners.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/08/25/crypto-miners-fined-about-1-7-million-in-russia/