Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Vasily Shpak has appealed to the Ministry of Digital Development and the Central Bank to assess the feasibility of using equipment of Russian oil-producing companies for mining. «Ъ» reports, citing Shpak’s letter.
The plan involves using associated petroleum gas (APG) to generate electricity to power data centers (DCs) and use them for cryptocurrency mining.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade asked the Central Bank to assess how lawful such a proposal is. The ministry said the initiative came from market participants.
A source close to the ministry said that one of the major Russian oil-producing companies wants to scale up its mining project, but its plans are hampered by legislative uncertainty in the sector.
The project could involve Gazprom Neft. In 2020, it launched a project to mine APG in Khanty-Mansiysk. For more on the initiative, read ForkLog’s special project.
Cryptocurrency mining is not officially banned in Russia. The head of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, Anatoly Aksakov, proposed to register mining as a form of entrepreneurship and, legislatively to set out the procedure for taxing this activity.
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