Despite a lack of regulation on cryptocurrencies and markets in Russia, leaders court crypto miners with a variety of incentives. The entire country seems to be ripe for crypto setups to emerge and, not unsurprisingly, many proposed sites for crypto farms are military strongholds. Putin himself says that allowing the crypto market to develop without them is a risk to Russian sovereignty.
The Western Front
In the heart of Western Europe, a Russian enclave is more than just militarily and strategically advantageous. Kaliningrad, site of the Russian Baltic Fleet Headquarters of World War II, home to the Iksander nuclear weapons system, is becoming a new kind of frontier.
Russian officials are offering a number of attractive incentives for opening up a Bitcoin mining farm in the area. Kaliningrad already boasts a mining hotel, and will soon grow enterprise in the cryptocurrency economy. For the small price of $1 million rubles, investors can enjoy facilities with lower taxes on property and profits, lowered benefits payments and more.
Tax breaks and other government-offered benefits are not the only reason Kaliningrad is attractive to miners. Plans to minimize the cost of connecting to power grids also drive interest in the area. The Russian development institution, Vnesheconombank, sponsored the Crypto Environment forum, at which plans for making connections with power infrastructure more cost-effective were laid out.
Arctic weather makes AC units obsolete!
For miners looking to set up in another climate, Russia has a solution for them too. The northern outpost of Murmansk is inviting miners to set up there, touting the cold climate and cheap electricity rate as major boons to enterprising Bitcoiners. The freezing temperatures will help with cooling hard-working servers, and cheap power will keep profit margins higher. Human beings have never been very fond of this cold climate, however, and this is not the first time officials have tried to incentivize people to live there. In the USSR, workers were offered higher wages and better standards of living to move to Murmansk.
Deputy Energy Minister Vyacheslav Kravchenko notes that the Kola Peninsula in Murmansk would be a great place for crypto farmers to set up, and he doesn’t stop there. He stated that his department would like to see miners in Siberia, too.
According to some analysts, the Arctic will become an important territory as natural resources become more limited. Setting up stable economies and robust infrastructures in this region make good sense for Russian longevity. Again, this region is militarily valuable, being home to the Russian Northern Fleet.
Let’s not forget the Southern Reaches and the Eastern Border
Russian officials seem to be open to crypto mining in any part of the country, in fact. As part of the effort to develop Crimea, some proposals have come forward to develop its potential as a test hub for crypto technology. The ‘Crypto-Crimea’ plan is being touted as a solution to many economic challenges in the region.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is stationed outside of Crimea, following the hotly contested and unrecognized annexation of the area. Additionally, in the Eastern Primorsky Krai, Vladivostok is earmarked to become another crypto hub. Vladivostok is located near China and North Korea and is home to the Russian Pacific Fleet.
With all this talk about expanding crypto farming in key Russian security centers, it seems that the Russians are banking on crypto to be the future. Officials in areas all around Russia are allowing for the trade of cryptocurrencies, despite any sweeping regulation on the practice.
According to President Vladimir Putin, lagging in the area of technological advancement is not an option. He says that it is important for Russia to have its own digital platforms in the growing tech environment, and that distributed ledger technology will allow Russia to handle financial and technological services in the most progressive way available. To falter in developing this area of technology is risky to the stability of Russia, according to Putin, who is up for his fourth term of office as president.
