- Residential miners in Russia are facing a government crackdown on their mining activity.
- Japan is profiting from excess energy by mining Bitcoin.
Ban on Residential Mining Activity for Russians
Russian Bitcoin miners who operate from residential properties may face charges from their utility companies. Although Russia has not banned mining, electricity providers are taking measures to detect residential miners and charge them higher commercial rates.
Head of Criminal Legal Policy Ekaterina Avdeeva said that residents who consume more than 30% of an average apartment building would come under scrutiny.
There have already been ten cases where miners have had to pay the difference between energy rates. If they don’t settle the immediate debt, their energy supply will be cut off. The Managing Partner of GMT Legal, Andrey Tugarin, said that anyone who uses a lot of energy is a miner.
This comes after significant mining activity in Russia due to cheap energy rates and a lack of intervention. This has changed now, with miners from one area being forced to pay back $1.7 million in fees.
Tepco Turn a Profit on Bitcoin Mining
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Japanese energy provider that operated the destroyed Fukushima power plant in 2012, has now turned its hand to Bitcoin mining through its sister company Agile Energy X.
TEPCO’s CEO is not optimistic about their ‘business environment’; net profit is down 96.9%, with Fukushima costs being well out of reach, according to a statement in early 2022. One response to this situation is to start mining Bitcoin.
According to a translated statement, the TEPCO-owned Agile Energy X aims to partner with TRIPLE-1, a local semiconductor company. They plan to repurpose surplus electricity to power computational computers with dedicated data centers across Japan.
They’ve already made a start, with results mentioned in the statement:
“We have started experiments to confirm the system behavior and the impact on the power grid when equipment is operated with a large amount of power on the scale of 1,500 kW, and have confirmed that the equipment can operate normally.”
On the Flipside
- Though using excess energy to mine Bitcoin is certainly friendlier to the environment, there is still the argument that Bitcoin consumes too much electricity. Changing the consensus model would fix that, but many are against such an idea.
Why You Should Care
Markets can be affected by news and regulations surrounding mining, especially when a country begins to take action. Investors should be aware of global crypto industry changes, as sudden changes could affect their portfolios.