Russia’s Tatarstan eyes building $100m Bitcoin mining center

Fintech company Innopolis Tech controlled by a former minister of communications of Russia is set to build the largest Bitcoin mining center in Russia worth around $100 million.

The Republic of Tatarstan is gearing up to build Russia‘s largest Bitcoin mining infrastructure valued at around $100 million investments, according to local news reports, citing Roman Shaykhutdinov, a deputy prime minister of Tatarstan.

Speaking at a crypto forum in Kazan, Shaykhutdinov said the project will be undertaken by Innopolis Tech, a fintech company controlled by Nikolai Nikiforov, Russia’s ex-communications and press minister.

Although specific details about the construction timeline and the list of investors haven’t been disclosed, Shaykhutdinov said the facility’s projected hashrate will be 3 exahashes per second, potentially making it one of the key players in the global crypto mining industry.

Despite the ambitions, Russia still doesn’t have a clear regulatory regime for crypto miners. In late April, Russia’s lawmakers unveiled a new version of a bill aimed at regulating the crypto mining market in the country. According to Anatoly Aksakov, one of the bill’s authors, the bill could come into effect as early as September this year, though it’s far from the first time Russia’s lawmakers are trying to build a regulatory regime for crypto miners.

In mid-February, BitRiver, a Bitcoin mining company targeted by OFAC sanctions, also unveiled plans to launch the largest data center in Russia focused on artificial intelligence.

As crypto.news reported, Bitriver-B, a subsidiary of BitRiver Group, is set to launch the largest data center for energy-intensive computations in Eurasia in the second half of 2024. The expected capacity of the data center is said to be 100 megawatts, as reported by Sergey Bezdelov, director of the Association of Industrial Mining.