Russia has banned crypto mining and mining-pool participation in Moscow, the Moscow Region and parts of Kursk through Dec. 31, 2032. The Energy Ministry says the restriction is needed to protect regional power grids from energy-intensive mining facilities, following regional bans that began in 2024.
Moscow joins the list of restricted regions
Russia has banned crypto mining in Moscow, the surrounding Moscow Region and parts of Kursk, with the restrictions set to run through Dec. 31, 2032. The measure, established under government decree No. 936, also bars participation in crypto mining pools.
The decree was signed on July 25 and published on July 31, local media reports. Russia as a whole accounted for an estimated 175 exahashes per second, or 16.4% of Bitcoin's global computing power, in the first quarter, according to Luxor's Hashrate Index. That placed the country second behind the U.S., though it remains unclear how much of that capacity sat in the newly restricted region.
Grid strain drives the decision
The country's Energy Ministry said a year-round restriction was needed to reduce the risk of power-capacity shortages as energy-intensive mining facilities connect to regional grids. Mining currently consumes roughly 1 gigawatt in the Moscow power system, while the region's data-center capacity could reach 3.6 gigawatts, or 17% of peak demand, by 2032, Interfax reported after the decree was first signed.
Mining still serves as a sanctions workaround
Mining is also linked to Russia's Western sanctions. Russian companies had been using domestically mined bitcoin in international payments after legal changes designed to counter Western restrictions, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in December 2024. Legislation passed by parliament in July maintained Russia's ban on domestic crypto payments but preserved exceptions for foreign-trade settlements and transactions involving mined cryptocurrency, keeping the mechanism available as sanctions restrict conventional payment channels.
The U.S. Treasury sanctioned BitRiver and 10 subsidiaries in 2022, saying Russian mining companies helped the country monetize its energy resources and could offset the impact of sanctions.
Russia legalized registered crypto mining in 2024, before banning the activity in 10 regions through March 2031, citing electricity demand. Year-round restrictions were later extended to southern Irkutsk and most areas of Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai.
Source: CoinDesk
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