Russia’s Crypto Mines Now Official Exports: Bitcoin Gets a Gold Star! 🚀

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Russia’s cryptic new export: Bitcoin! 🎩🪄

In what could only be described as a move straight out of a particularly adventurous episode of “The Ministry of Silly Walks,” a senior Kremlin aide-by the name of Maxim Oreshkin-has declared that Russia’s clandestine, and rather zealous, cryptocurrency miners should be bestowed with the honor of being officially recognized as export merchants. Yes, you read that right-cryptocurrency mining is now to be considered an export, impacting trade data as much as a cotton factory or a ballet school. Because nothing says “serious nation” like counting digital digits as physical exports, eh wot?

Crypto mining rigs

Mr. Oreshkin, with all the serious gravitas of a man announcing the end of the world, claims that tens of thousands of Bitcoins “effectively flow abroad”-though how exactly they do that without crossing a border is a puzzle for the ages, or at least for the next cryptic memo from the Kremlin. Industry estimations have Russian miners producing somewhere in the vicinity of 55,000 Bitcoin in 2023, with a sad little rebound to about 35,000 in 2024, all while generating close to a billion rubles a day. A tidy sum, but still a far cry from “big country” status, unless you’re counting digital sheep.

Bitcoin globe

Russia’s officially legal mining sector includes registration, taxes up to 25%, and a charming little caveat: widespread illegal operations and power theft, which are costing the government enough to make even the most hardened bureaucrat weep into his kvass. It seems that many miners prefer the underground economy, which, as everyone knows, is the best way to avoid paying taxes-after all, who wouldn’t want to be part of the secret society of “Power Thieves and Tax Dodgers”? ✨

Bitcoin’s new passport: The Russian Export Plan

Our dear Maxim believes that, despite the apparent lack of physical borders, mined crypto assets are flowing out like a river of glitter, making them ripe for cataloguing as exports. He’s convinced that “the industry generates substantial sums” and influences both the FX market and the balance of payments, though perhaps not in the way the Kremlin originally envisioned-more like in a chaotic, spectacular fashion that would make even the stoniest of economists blink twice.

Russia, having legalized crypto mining just recently-on Nov. 1, 2024, to be precise-seems to regard it as a “new export item,” much like caviar or vodka, but with far more zeros and nobody quite knowing how to spell “blockchain.” The idea is that since crypto can be used for import payments, counting these transactions would help the nation keep score of its digital economy. Because, after all, what’s more patriotic than logging your Bitcoin receipts as national treasure? 🎖️

The industry’s figures are enough to turn heads. Oleg Ogienko suggests that the country’s output could match “tens of thousands” of Bitcoins, while Sergey Bezdelov estimates 55,000 in 2023 and 35,000 in 2024, thanks to halving (which, in miner terms, means lower rewards and more grumbling in mining circles). Meanwhile, Mikhail Brezhnev-no relation to the former Soviet leader, unless he’s secretly mining in a bunker-reckons daily mining income hits about 1 billion rubles, which is roughly enough to buy a small island, or perhaps just a very fancy yacht. 🚤

Russian Bank

All this mining money could settle import bills directly, leading to a clear case for giving official recognition to these digital gold nuggets. However, the authorities are not letting everyone run wild in the crypto hayloft-regulations require registration, taxes, and assorted bureaucratic nonsense. Those rebelling miners-think of them as the “Robin Hood” of electricity theft-are costing billions in stolen power and unpaid taxes, which the government would dearly love to recoup, but the underground industry is as lively as a Moscow circus backstage.

And so, amid the chaos, grandeur, and the usual Russian flair for mixing the legal with the clandestine, the crypto miners-both big and small-continue their operations, some bending the rules, some straight-up ignoring them, while the rest chant “We’re just here for the blockchain, honestly.” And the taxpayers, well, they’re just glad they’re not the ones who have to decode this digital Rubik’s Cube. 🎭

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2025-12-04 15:19