Russia Bans Crypto Mining in Multiple Regions, Citing Energy Concerns (engadget.com) 87
The Russian government has banned crypto mining in ten regions for a period of six years, according to reporting by the state-owned news agency Tass. Engadget adds: Russia has cited the industry's high power consumption rates as the primary reason behind the ban. Crypto is particularly power-hungry, as mining operations already account for nearly 2.5 percent of US energy use.
This ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The country's Council of Ministers has also stated that additional bans may be required in other regions during periods of peak energy demand. It could also go the other way. The ban could be temporarily lifted or altered in certain regions if a government commission examines changes in energy demand and deems it necessary.
This ban takes effect on January 1 and lasts until March 15, 2031. The country's Council of Ministers has also stated that additional bans may be required in other regions during periods of peak energy demand. It could also go the other way. The ban could be temporarily lifted or altered in certain regions if a government commission examines changes in energy demand and deems it necessary.
Sounds like (Score:3)
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Spending untold amounts of money to repair destroyed oil refineries, ammunition dumps, replace sunk ships, tens of thousands of tanks, APCs, and other war materiel tends to do that.
But in no way are sanctions having any effect.
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so it's 20 years now? that's a long way to push the delusion ahead ... methinks we'll see results much sooner, just watch out that it isn't the west shutting itself out from the rest of the world.
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so it's 20 years now? that's a long way to push the delusion ahead ... methinks we'll see results much sooner
Of course when Putin dies anything could happen, and I certainly hope that is much sooner, yes, but there is no rush. They can stay in place as long as necessary
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Sanctions are a long term commitment. How does Russia look in 20 years shut out from the west compared to how they would have looked otherwise? That difference makes them useful, since it does not cost us much at all.
If by "us" you mean the United States than you are probably right. It doesn't cost us much. But the question may be how does Europe look without Russia in 20 years compared to how they would have looked otherwise. Have you noticed Germany, by far Europe's largest economy, is now shrinking. And it is not just Germany that is struggling from being cut off from Russia. Witness the panic in some countries over natural gas supplies. That is the cost side.
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What do you mean, 20 years? After el Bunko becomes la presidenta again, he'll remove any sanctions and lean on Europe to remove theirs. Think of it as Putin's late Christmas present. Shortly thereafter, Putin will find a way to funnel money into el Bunko's "businesses". Remember, el Bunko never does anything unless he can profit from it. And he won't give a flying rat's ass if Russia kills every last Ukrainian, women and children first, he's that amoral.
Re: Sounds like (Score:2)
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Are you seriously suggesting that America should have declared war on Russia?
Do you have any idea how completely nuts that is?
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You do realize that this is exactly what America (and Britain, and Russia itself) committed themselves to in return for Ukraine destroying their nuclear weapons, right?
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Ukrainian children? You mean the ones Putin is deliberately [cnn.com] targetting [cnn.com] The ones Putin has been kidnapping [npr.org] from [npr.org] Ukraine [cbsnews.com] and forcing them to learn Russian [ibtimes.com] in an attempt to erase the Ukrainian identity [reuters.com]? You mean those children?
If you're so concerned about the Ukrainian children then you can tell Putin to get out of Ukraine. It's that simple.
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No, it doesn't work that way and you know it. So, please, provide me a plan for ending this war that'll actually, you know, *work*
It does not work that way either.
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And what do you think will happen if Ukraine surrenders? Making Muscovitian the official language of Ukraine is one of Putin's demands. Puppet government will care of the rest.
And if the war is frozen into a truce, Putin will invade again in 5 or 10 years. We had seen enough of this in Chechnya, Syria, Georgia, Ukraine.
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As long as that nice proxy war bleeds off Russia you're happy, and Ukrainian children be damned.
Whether and for how long they fight is a decision for the Ukrainian people. They are begging for weapons, so that does not sound to me like they are pussies like you.
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Also note taking territory is much easier than occupying it. The Afghanistan-like part of the war has not even started yet.
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I expect sanctions start to bite when bits start failing on all their plants, trains, planes, machinery and they realise they can't procure replacements. Then they start using knock off parts from China, cannibalizing their gear and generally watching their infrastructure degrade, fall apart and become decrepit.
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Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
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Russia has plenty of gas.
The bottleneck is generating capacity.
Ukrainian drones should target the generators.
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At Amazon we built a data center in western China, near the solar panel fields, with the assurance that it would be free from interference like the Beijing DC. When it was almost completed, servers being racked, etc., interference appeared and eventually we sold the facility without it ever going online. Three months later the whole 500,000 square feet was mining Bitcoin.
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"Its a payment system" nope. Nobody holding it wants to buy things with it, they want to unload it after it goes up. Transaction costs are too high, and its too slow to use it as it was intended.
That's what lightning network is used for [wikipedia.org].
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Proof of Work is kind of wasteful, but it's not essential for running a blockchain. Proof of Stake was introduced by Peercoin in 2012, and of the bigger cryptocurrencies, Ethereum has made the switch from PoW to PoS.
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, so while there's been a lot of interesting development in the scene, Bitcoin retains a lot of flaws you could expect from the first iteration of an idea. If we can't just switch to a better blockchain, I'd gladly welcome changes such as PoS to Bitcoin, bu
The more cost effective way to get bitcrap (Score:1)
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Crypto is just like gold
Not entirely... gold does not require electricity or an internet connection to be exchanged.
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Nope. Gold has some industrial uses at current market prices and it will not fall below about half that price because then it starts to have a lot of industrial uses. Crapto has no real value whatsoever.
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That is some fine bullshit you have there. Well, what can you expect from an arrogant asshole with no clue.
Here is something on actual, current industrial use at _current_ _market_ _prices_ : https://www.moneymetals.com/ne... [moneymetals.com]
Good luck (Score:3)
How are they going to know who is mining crypto? They can target the large centralized operations, but anything else could be a gamer rig or similar.
Re:Good luck (Score:4, Informative)
The big miners use custom silicon and pay wholesale rates for electricity.
Someone using a gamer GPU and paying residential electricity rates can't mine cost-effectively.
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CPU mining says hello.
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The rest of the world says goodbye.
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Re: Good luck (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s Russia. All the government has to do is demand that the local electric authority provide a list of every customer using industrial amounts of electricity. If somebody refuses to hand over a list theyâ(TM)ll commit suicide by jumping out a window.
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In the US utilities are required to reveal energy usage which would indicate a marijuana grow-op to authorities. They can be fined if they don't, and charges can be pressed against officials who do not comply. A grow-op does a lot less damage to our ecosystem, culture and economy than a DC mining crypto.
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What about the people not using industrial levels of electricity? You can run a btc miner in an empty apartment or even an occupied one if you cut a deal with the people living there.
Distribute that among multiple housing units and profit.
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Since when? It takes hundreds of rigs to pull that kind of power. If you're running one bitmain ASIC, you are not pulling megawatts.
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If you're running one bitmain ASIC, you are not pulling megawatts.
nor are you relevant unless there are millions of you, which there aren't because that's a freaking expensive way to watch a toaster fry as a hobby.
Re:Good luck (Score:4, Insightful)
It's actually quite easy in a country like Russia. A large gaming rig doesn't use the same energy as a bitcoin miner because people don't game 24/7. It's a country with plentiful gas, where most heating and cooking is *not* electric, and people don't have plenty of solar power. That makes even tiny mining operations stand out in a neighbourhood. Look at the top 1% of houses with an electricity bill that is 3-4 std devs above the average and you're likely to find something illegal, maybe a bitcoin miner, maybe a drug lab, maybe a slum lord.
The problem is harder in Western Europe where policy is pushing for the electrification of everything. My house with 2-3 bitcoin rigs running full tilt wouldn't beat a normal new house with induction stove, heat pump heating and hot water, and an EV parked in the driveway.
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I don't think they really give a shit about some guy with a 1200W power supply in a PC case.
They care about megawatt-scale operations.
This problem is easy to solve. (Score:4, Interesting)
If Russia stopped spending billions of dollars a day in Ukraine they could build nuclear plants surrounded by data centers. They have the expertise, they have the space, but the money is all going down Putin's toilet of folly.
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Russia's too rotten. The whole system is set to feed Putin and the next tier down of oligarchs, everyone who can be is stealing. They need Ukraine just to keep the lights on and, you know, to stop showing Russians that there is a more productive and happier way to live.
Russia will keep attacking Ukraine until Putin's dead or Trump finds a way to hand Ukraine to him despite the EU.
And I'm not sure Russia does have the expertise any longer. It's in Ukraine or fled Russia when conscription started.
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You post pro-Russian bullshit all the time. Go lick Putin's rectum somewhere else.
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And you regularly post racist anti-Russian drivel utterly unconnected from reality.
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Yeah, wherever you see people getting too short sighted and worshipping greed and power more than education and civics. But the US isn't quite past the tipping point, it could still come back.
It seems less likely every day, and the next four years are going to be a very tough trial to pass, but it isn't over for them yet.
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Right, because they're foolish to believe that the most aggressive country on Earth wouldn't use Ukraine as a launching pad to destroy them. No siree, anyone imagining that the US would want to break them up and steal their resources must be hysterical, they'd NEVER do that! /s
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Yeah, what country wouldn't want to take over a demoralized country with no concept of the rule of law to protect investments, and a kleptocracy class that will steal anything not nailed down. And said demoralized country is neighboring those nice Chinese and their parasitic CCP who actually will steal what is left of Russia blind and will look unkindly toward anyone else attempting the same.
Russia isn't wrong here (Score:4, Insightful)
Crypto mining is why I pay 2x as much for electricity today than a few years ago.
The only difference is the Bit Coin Bros showed up and burn through roughly 3GW of power . . . . PER DAY.
The short version is, the Bit Coin Bros are using so much damn power they're keeping demand artificially high.
Everyone knows when the demand for something is high, the prices for said something are also high.
In effect, the people here get to pay extra high electricity bills so the Bit Coin Bros can make millions by burning :|
though the same amount of power as ~300,000 homes. Every. Single. Day.
Russia is actually doing the smart thing here.
The right way to do it would be to force the miners to build their own electricity generation systems.
Wind, Solar, Hydro, Thermal, whatever, to help offset the amount of power they're actively burning through.
Considering the heat they generate, thermal might even be the best choice.
Not Surprised (and no one should be either) (Score:1)