Russia’s Energy Minister Advocates for Bitcoin Mining Amidst Current Realities

In the face of the current realities in Russia, the Deputy Minister of Energy Evgeny Grabchak has advocated for the development of a regulatory framework to support the mining of Bitcoin (BTC) through a process dubbed Proof-of-Work (PoW) system. As reported by the TASS Russian News Agency, the deputy minister made this comment over the weekend at the first national conference of legal crypto miners in Irkutsk.

“The legal vacuum makes it difficult to regulate this area and set clear rules of the game. This legal vacuum needs to be [eliminated] as soon as possible. If we want somehow to get along with this activity, and we have no other options in the current reality, we must introduce legal regulation, adding the concept of mining to the regulatory framework,” Grabchak said.

Grabchak’s call also centers on permitting regional control of Bitcoin mining rather than the Federal government, and he advocated this should be captured in the proposed legal framework.

The fate of digital currencies, particularly Bitcoin, was under serious contention earlier this year as the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) pushed for the ban of transactions involving digital assets. When the proposal made the rounds at the time, it met with a lot of criticisms from major tech and political leaders in the country, and the government revised its stance to limit its ban on PoW mining.

Russia’s Solace in Bitcoin Drawing Sanctions

The call by Grabchak has proven the severity of the sanctions being levied on the Russian government and economy for the invasion of Ukraine back in February. With the country’s foreign reserve assets frozen, and financial institutions moving out of the country, the citizen’s allowance to conduct international transactions has been relatively streamlined.

In a bid to offer an iota of financial freedom, there has been a dramatic shift to Bitcoin which was on the verge of being banned some weeks back. As reported earlier by TheCoinRise, Russia is fine with accepting Bitcoin for its natural gas products as facilitating international transactions has become somewhat difficult with the growing sanctions.

While Russia is beginning to take solace in Bitcoin across the board, other world leaders are also devising measures to ensure that the country does not depend on BTC to evade the sanctions being levied on the nation. From the European Central Bank to the United States Lawmakers, several legislative moves are being introduced to prevent Russia from utilizing Bitcoin as freely as it would want to.