Russia becomes a heavyweight in mining

The Russian mining industry is experiencing strong growth, with BitRiver leading the way, propelling Russia into the top 3 globally.

Russian mining: How many GW?

According to miner BitRiver, Russia is now ranked second globally in terms of mining power (1 GW). The United States is in first place, with nearly 4 GW.

Other top 10 countries listed by BitRiver are the Gulf States (700 MW), Canada (400 MW), Malaysia (300 MW), Argentina (135 MW), Iceland (120 MW), Paraguay (100-125 MW), Kazakhstan (100 MW), and Ireland (90 MW), as reported by Kommersant.

However, this ranking does not take into account China, which still controls about 20% of the hashrate. This is much less than in 2021, when China housed approximately 60% of the hashrate.

It’s worth noting that Chinese companies such as Bitmain and MicroBT produce most of the ASICs. Most miners use Antminers manufactured by Bitmain.

Don’t miss our article reviewing all the major miners in North America.

BitRiver believes this positive trend is due to restrictions that hit Kazakh and Chinese miners due to electricity shortages. The Kazakh parliament cracked down by introducing licenses to protect the national power grid. Iran is doing the same to avoid blackouts in summer.

BitRiver CEO Igor Runec believes that mining development in the United States has slowed down due to “the rising cost of electricity.”

“Moreover, the vast majority of equipment was purchased on credit, so many indebted companies have gone bankrupt or already failed,” he said two weeks ago.

New miners’ migrations?

Roman Nekrasov, co-founder of the ENCRY foundation, says that the entire industry is watching the decisions of US regulators. Indeed, the bill proposing to increase miners’ electricity taxation could trigger a similar exodus to the one in China in 2021.

Nekrasov notes that Chinese regulators appear to be less hostile towards Bitcoin miners. In other words, the global hashrate map may be shaken up again in the coming years.

In this context, the Russian industry is expected to thrive, given the low cost of electricity and favorable cold climate.

“Some regions are very profitable for the bitcoin industry in terms of electricity prices,” said Alisa Tsukanova (EMCD).

“These regions (Irkutsk, Sverdlovsk, Krasnoyarsk, and others), in addition to low electricity costs, have a favorable climate, making additional investments for cooling unnecessary,” she explained.

However, Mikhail Brezhnev, co-founder of 51ASIC, warns of the Bitcoin regulation bill currently being studied by the Duma.

“A balanced law will allow for operational and financial planning, the development and implementation of major projects, and the attraction of investment,” hopes BitRiver’s CEO.

It’s not surprising that miners from a country disconnected from the SWIFT network, accumulating gold for years, and enjoying enormous surplus energy sources are now in the top 3 globally.

With the blessing of the Ministry of Energy and the Kremlin. Here’s an old intervention from Vladimir Putin in 2022:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that Russia has competitive advantages in mining due to its qualified personnel and the surplus of electricity. Mr Putin asked the Government and the Central Bank to reach a consensus decision on the cryptocurrency regulation in Russia. pic.twitter.com/5oo0OBzW9Y

— BitRiver AG (@BitRiverMining) January 26, 2022

Meanwhile, in France, EDF is running Ethereum nodes…