Hibapress
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Thursday legalizing cryptocurrency mining activities in Russia.
The document, adopted by both chambers of the Russian parliament, establishes the procedure and conditions for conducting such activities under the supervision of the Russian Ministry of Digital Development. Under the law, Russian legal entities and individual entrepreneurs registered in the register of the ministry will have the right to engage in mining.
The new legislation should also allow the Russian Central Bank to create a pilot project to develop the use of cryptocurrencies in cross-border transactions, which was not allowed until now.
Russia is one of the world’s leading producers, along with the United States and Kazakhstan, in terms of “mining”, an operation that consists of carrying out a long series of calculations leading to the production of a unit of cryptocurrency. These calculations require significant computing power and therefore a colossal amount of energy.
At a government meeting on July 17, the Russian president criticized the “uncontrolled growth” of electricity consumption needed for mining.
According to the Russian head of state, “almost 1.5% of the total national electricity consumption” is used each year in Russia for mining.
