The Deputy Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation announced that the extraction of digital currencies takes 2% of the total amount of electricity consumed.
Vasily Shpak interview Interfax told the agency that, according to his data, miners spend several times more electricity than agriculture consumes, so the market urgently needs to be regulated.
The official said that the authorities cannot recognize mining as an industrial activity or a branch of the economy. Mining of digital currencies is currently in a “grey zone”, is not taxed and creates risks for the people who do it. According to Shpak, this activity needs to be taken out of the gray zone, rules should be developed and the industry should be made clear and transparent to the authorities.
“Yes, most likely, less energy will be spent on mining in general in the near future, because the world in terms of digital currencies is moving to other, less expensive protocols. But nevertheless, it is obvious that these are calculations, they will consume energy one way or another. Here our position is absolutely unambiguous: mining must be recognized, regulated and built into industrial activity.”
According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Miner Energy Consumption Index, Russia ranked third in terms of mining volume, but recently dropped out of the top 3 countries in the world. Now Russian miners generate about 4.7% of the total hashrate of the Bitcoin network. The United States remains in first place with 37.8%, China and Kazakhstan take the second and third places, respectively.
Source: Bits
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