Several regions will be subject to a complete prohibition from 2025 to 2031, while critical regions such as Irkutsk will be subject to seasonal restrictions.
The Russian government has approved a proposal to regulate Bitcoin mining, which will result in a complete prohibition in 10 regions of the country beginning on January 1, 2025. The measure will be in effect until March 15, 2031.
Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk Republics, and the other partially occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in Ukraine will all be subject to the prohibition, according to the TASS news agency. The regulation will influence both individual (solo-mining) activities and mining pool operations.
The three Siberian regions—Irkutsk, Buryatia, and Zabaikalsky—will only experience seasonal restrictions during winter energy consumption peaks. These limitations will be enforced from January 1 to March 15 in 2025, and they will be extended from November 15 to March 15 in subsequent years.
The decision is a more equitable approach than the initial November proposal, which proposed a complete prohibition in 13 regions, including Irkutsk, a critical center for Russian mining. The decision to permit operations in this region, albeit with limitations, appears to be a compromise to safeguard the interests of industry actors such as BitRiver, which has maintained its largest data center in the region since 2019.
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