Putin Aims for Crypto Mining Regulation: Report

Russian President Vladimir Putin is backing a proposal that aims to regulate crypto mining in the country. The report comes a day after President Putin was quoted as saying Russia had "advantages" in crypto mining. Speaking to the associates of his government on Wednesday 26, he commented that "we also have certain competitive advantages here, especially in the so-called mining." Putin referenced the country's surplus in electricity production, which can be leveraged to support crypto mining.

The price of electricity in Russia was $0.06 (roughly RS. 5) per kilowatt-hour for household use and $0.08 (roughly RS.6) for businesses.

According to a Bloomberg report, President Putin may be in support of taxing and regulating crypto mining in the country, which is contrary to the stand of Bank of Russia's proposal for a total ban on crypto mining and trading last week.

Putin is backing a new proposal by the government that aims to regulate mining an energy-intensive process that uses specialized transactions on a Proof-of-Work blockchain like Bitcoin.

Bloomberg report suggests that if crypto mining is permitted in Russia with president backed-proposal, it world make crypto mining operations take place in the energy-rich regions such as Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk and Karelia. However, neither the government nor the central bank has issued an official notice in this regard.

Due to the cheap electricity prices in Russia, crypto-mining has increased in the country making Kazakhstan ranked the second-largest Bitcoin mining nation according to data released by Cambridge report. And the increase in crypto mining in the country leads some of the regions to face acute power shortages.

However, it seems that Putin might be considering keeping crypto mining active in Russia, but with proper regulations and management put in place first.

As of now, Russia's official stance on the crypto sector remains awaited. 

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