Crypto mining farms increase 44% nearly 200,000 despite ban in Russia

The number of mining farms in Russia has seen a significant increase over the past year, since Moscow legalized the crypto activity in 2024.

The upward trend is largely due to growing investments in the sector following its recognition as a legitimate business, industry sources say. Others claim illegal mining is contributing, too.

Russia counts its cryptocurrency farms using AI tech

Farms minting digital currencies like Bitcoin have increased by 44% this year despite a ban that’s now covering a dozen Russian regions, affected by energy shortages blamed on the mining boom.

Their total number has reached 196,900, according to a report produced by a new system designed to identify such facilities, even when they are not officially reported to the state.

The EnergyTool platform has been developed by the Russian telecom company MTS. It discovers crypto mining installations by monitoring electricity consumption.

It’s doing that by analyzing information collected from automated metering systems in real time, using AI to register anomalies in power usage, thus detecting unauthorized connections to the grid, tampering of measuring instruments and unusual loads.

The solution, which relies on artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, has been in operation for a few years now. In January, MTS announced it had obtained a patent for it.

According to the latest data from the tool, quoted by the business news editions RBC and Kommersant, crypto farms have been mushrooming across Russia in 2025. For comparison, they numbered 136,600 at the end of 2024, which was just a 7% increase year-on-year.

Irkutsk keeps Russia’s mining capital title amid restrictions

According to the MTS analysis, three Russian regions are leading the chart by newly discovered crypto farms – the Siberian oblasts of Irkutsk and Novosibirsk, and the Southern Republic of Bashkortostan (Bashkiria).

Irkutsk, often dubbed the mining capital of Russia, has been a magnet for cryptocurrency miners due to its relatively low electricity rates.

The high concentration of both legal and illegal coin minting operations there led to a permanent mining ban in the south of the region. More than 10 Russian regions have already prohibited the activity until 2031.

Meanwhile, the Republic of Khakassia has taken the lead from Irkutsk as the most profitable place for mining, followed by the Tyumen and Murmansk regions.

The smallest number of recently found mining facilities was registered in Volgograd, Ivanovo, and Sverdlovsk regions, the Chuvash Republic (Chuvashia), the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the Altai Krai, as well as in the territories forming the Central Black Earth Region.

Fresh investment driving growth in Russia’s mining industry

The findings in the MTS study suggest that the legalization of cryptocurrency mining, which became Russia’s first regulated crypto industry, is largely responsible for the rapid expansion of the business, thanks to the inflow of investment money.

Sergey Bezdelov, head of Russia’s Industrial Mining Association, agrees that the spike is a direct consequence of the sector’s recognition as an investment vehicle. He elaborated:

“Since the state regulation of mining in August 2024, institutional investors have finally shifted toward the industry, which results in these figures.”

While Bezdelov partially attributed the increase to mining operations getting out of the shadow economy, he also noted it’s hard to count those that remain under the radar.

To mine legally in Russia, companies and individual entrepreneurs are required to only register with the Federal Tax Service (FNS) and pay taxes.

However, the percentage of actual registrations remains pretty low, hovering around 30%, revealed an estimate recently quoted by Russian officials.

Proposed solutions to the issue include a plan to criminalize illegal mining and a suggestion to offer amnesty for enterprises operating in the “gray” zone.

Russian authorities have been cracking down on criminal activities in the space, employing increasingly sophisticated means, tracking electricity consumption via smart meters and internet traffic with the help of telecom companies.

At the same time, the growing importance of the crypto mining industry for the sanctioned Russian economy has been acknowledged by both the Bank of Russia and the Kremlin, as reported by Cryptopolitan.

For now, it remains unclear whether the legal or the illegal segment of the market contributes more to its rising importance.

Anton Gontarev, commercial director of Intelion Data Systems, a major player in the industry, agreed with Bezdelov that the upward trend is due to the influx of serious capital into the now-regulated space.

On the other hand, a representative of the Russian energy company EN+ tied the increasing number of crypto farms mostly to the growth of illegal mining.

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