Putin: Cryptocurrency mining could lead to electricity shortages

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on economic issues, the topic of which was the development of digital technologies in the financial sector. During the meeting, the head of state drew attention to the issue of cryptocurrency development, blaming it for the problems Russia is having on the energy side.

“A separate issue concerns so-called cryptocurrencies. They are not monetary units in the common sense of the term, but they are increasingly being used around the world as a means of payment in international payments. In turn, the mining, or so-called mining, of digital currencies can be carried out virtually anywhere on the planet,” Vladimir Putin said (quoted by the Kremlin website ).

The president noted that, according to the Energy Ministry, 16 billion kWh are spent on cryptocurrency mining in Russia each year. He added that mining could lead to energy shortages in some regions. According to him, this has already been observed in Buryatia, the Irkutsk region and the Trans-Baikal territory.

Vladimir Putin also mentioned that he has already given instructions to regulate cryptocurrency mining in Russia. As the head of state made clear, the taxation of this activity and the introduction of tariffs were discussed.

On July 12, the State Duma’s Financial Market Committee approved, on first reading, the adoption of a bill on legalizing cryptocurrency mining. The draft documents state that the initiative will create conditions for legal mining, help “fill budgets,” and help regulate the issuance and circulation of digital currencies.

Yesterday, news had spread that a sudden outage at one of the nuclear reactors at the Rostov power plant had led to a series of widespread blackouts throughout southern Russia as far as Crimea. An uncomfortable situation that the government also seems to want to blame on virtual currency mining.