- Russia creates a national registry for crypto mining equipment.
- The registry targets illegal mining and unauthorized electricity use.
- The registry supports legal mining and reduces power grid overload.
Russia has started registering cryptocurrency mining devices on a national level to prevent illegal mining and relieve the power grid. The registry is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Energy, the Federal Tax Service, and the Ministry of Digital Development, the goal of which is to establish a single register of all crypto mining machines that work in the country.
Registry to Track and Regulate Crypto Mining Equipment
The registry allows all of the crypto miners to register their mining rigs by providing serial numbers, device models, and other related equipment information. The action allows the authorities to accurately know electricity consumers who are involved in cryptocurrency mining and compel them to abide by the rules of mining and taxation.
Deputy Minister of Energy Petr Konyushenko stressed that the registry is an important step on the way to legalization of the crypto mining industry and the reduction of unregulated consumption of electricity, which has become a reason for huge losses of power companies and energy shortage in certain territories. This enabled enforcing the draft registry as the ministry shared it with the areas that had high mining activity.
In Russia, illegal mining has been on the rise, and some of the miners use illegal connections or subsidized residential electricity to run the crypto farms. The registry will fight these practices because it will equip the authorities with the requisite information that they can use to monitor and control mining activities.
The registry program was initially suggested in February 2025 at a working meeting on the regulation of digital currency extraction, with the support of the Ministry of Industry in May. It is followed by the legalization of cryptocurrency mining in Russia in 2024, when companies and individual entrepreneurs are allowed to mine digital coins legally as long as they are registered and pay taxes.
Impact on Taxation and Energy Consumption
The registry will also help collect taxes, as the Federal Tax Service will be able to monitor mining activities more accurately. Miners should also declare the amount and price of the mined cryptocurrency, and this aspect falls in line with the new tax system established in Russia, where the revenue of the miners and the cryptocurrency trades are taxed at 15 percent, and crypto transactions are not subject to value-added tax.
Individuals are allowed to mine privately without registering in case they use up to 6,000 kWh of electricity per month. However, they still have to report their mining revenue to the appropriate tax authorities.
The crackdown on illegal mining is also contributing to a larger part in stabilizing the power grid, which has been overloaded by illegal mining farms. In the recent past, the authorities have closed down major illegal mining farms, including one with 240 rigs in Sayansk and another in a warehouse at St. Petersburg.
The registry supplements other control tools, such as an online tax declaration system of crypto miners, implemented by the Federal Tax Service. In this online system, the qualified miners can use their electronic signatures to report their earnings and pay taxes more effectively.
