Faced with the rise of illegal “mining” of cryptocurrencies, Russia, the second power in this sector after the United States, is trying to regulate this energy-intensive activity. The country spends 16 billion kilowatt hours on mining each year, or about 1.5% of its total electricity consumption, reports The Moscow Times.
Huge energy consumption, writes the popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda. To produce cryptoassets, “you have to ‘mine’ them, but here, no pickaxe: these are complex calculations carried out by very energy-intensive computers which fulfill this role”, explains Maxim Chirkov, associate professor at the Department of Economic Policy and Economic Measurements at the State University of Management, Moscow.
“Terrorists”
In the North Caucasus, Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia, where electricity prices are historically low, illegal mining of cryptocurrencies has become a major challenge, explains the Caucasian information site Kavkaz Uzel. But this activity overloads electricity infrastructure and regularly plunges entire districts of Dagestan and Chechnya into darkness, notes Novaya Gazeta.
In response, local authorities are tightening
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