Novosibirsk, a city in Siberia, is intensifying its crackdown on home crypto miners, as law enforcers recently arrested a resident for electricity fraud. The arrest was announced by Kirill Travin, the Deputy Head of the Novosibirsk Oblast’s branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, during a meeting with Governor Andrei Travnikov. Travin revealed that the man was caught in the northeastern Moshkovsky District, where authorities found six administrative violations. The man has been arrested and a criminal case has been launched against him. Travin also mentioned that the individual made over 12 million rubles ($123,000) from his mining activities. Although Travin did not disclose the type of cryptocurrency mined, local forum users claimed that the resident was mining Ethereum (ETH).
A Novosibirsk resident, who requested to remain anonymous, stated that many people in the city are involved in home-based crypto mining. He mentioned that there are apartments with rooms where the windows are always open, even in freezing temperatures, and strange noises can be heard from nearby rooms. While home-based crypto mining is not illegal in Russia, recent legislation requires miners to comply with electricity caps set by local power providers. Furthermore, regions have the authority to order all miners to shut down their operations from November 1, under the nation’s second crypto mining law signed by President Vladimir Putin. However, this law has left small-scale Russian miners confused due to certain ambiguities. The arrested resident in Novosibirsk was allegedly using subsidized electricity for mining, despite the lack of access to commercial power for most home-based miners.
Power companies in the region have been actively searching for illegal crypto mining farms. Novosibirsk has seen numerous instances of unauthorized mining operations in various locations such as near a sewage treatment plant, outside a city refuse dump, in forested areas, and even in residential spaces. Similar crackdowns have been witnessed in other parts of Siberia, including the Bitcoin mining hub of Irkutsk and the Republic of Buryatia. Some Russian miners in Siberia have resorted to using mobile crypto mining farms operated from vans and cars to avoid detection by power providers and law enforcement officials. Meanwhile, officials in Moscow are developing plans to tax industrial crypto miners, which is expected to generate significant revenue for the country.
