According to a report by the Moscow Times, the Russian government announced on Tuesday that it will implement a 'cryptocurrency mining ban' in several regions this winter to reduce electricity usage during periods of tight supply.

The affected areas include: parts of Irkutsk Oblast, Buryatia Republic, and Zabaikalsky outside of Eastern Siberia. At the same time, six regions in the North Caucasus, including the Chechen Republic and Dagestan, are also within the scope of the ban. In addition, the occupied Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson will also implement the Mining ban.

The ban was decided by a government committee led by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak to restrict energy-intensive CryptocurrencyMining activities during the heating season.

Specifically, mining activities in the Siberian region will be suspended from December 1st of this year and will continue until March 15, 2025. In addition, seasonal mining restrictions will be implemented every year from November 15th to March 15th before 2031.

As for the North Caucasus and the occupied areas of Ukraine, Mining activities will be completely banned from December 2024, and the ban will continue until 2031, without any seasonal exemptions.

This operation echoes a new decree signed earlier this month by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which not only regulates Mining activities but also experiments with cross-border encryption tiger coin payments. Although the use of Cryptocurrency for payments by the public is still prohibited within Russia, some officials believe that this could become a 'secret weapon' for Russia to bypass sanctions.

As the second largest mining country in the world, Russia consumes up to 16 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity for mining every year, accounting for 1.5% of the national electricity consumption.

The original article "Responding to Tight Power Supply, Winter Mining Ban in Multiple Regions of Russia" was first published in "Block Times".