Bitriver Mining Farm Recognized as Russia's Largest

The Bitriver mining farm, located in Siberia, is recognized as Russia's largest Bitcoin mining center, Bloomberg reports. The company belongs to the famous Russian billionaire Oleg DERIPASKA.

The energy-consuming business turned the former industrial city of Bratsk into one of the largest post-Soviet data processing centers: mining and data center were merged with one of the Soviet-era aluminum plant’s resources as part of the project.

The farm was built in partnership with the local energy company En+ — it uses local hydropower sources as mining is currently one of the best options for using excess hydropower. At the same time, Bitriver itself is not a mining company or pool due to a gap in Russian legislation. In fact, the company just provides reliable access to cheap electricity, while En+ supplies up to 100 megawatts per year to the Bratsk aluminum plant, which allows it to mine bitcoins on an industrial scale.

There are 243 BTC nodes concentrated in Russia — the country is among the ten countries with the largest number of bitcoin mining nodes in the world. Although the Russian government has repeatedly issued warnings against mining, especially with the use of household electrical networks, Deripaska managed to launch a new business, despite the expectation of the lifting of sanctions by the United States.

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