By Alicia Maher
Russia’s energy ministry has appealed to the nation’s rulers to facilitate the legalization of cryptos as quickly as possible. The ministry opined that Russia stands to benefit enormously from legalizing crypto operations.
Russia’s Crypto Space Requires Legal Clarity – Deputy Energy Minister
The ministry reiterated that the government’s approval becomes more relevant. It is among the top three countries with the highest number of crypto miners, with the other two countries being the USA and Kazakhstan. The latest Santiment data shows that Russia accounts for about 10.5% of the BTC’s hash rate globally.
Despite not having any legal clarity regarding crypto, Russia remains among the top three BTC mining hubs globally. Some Russian legislators have called for a ban on crypto activities similar to what China did. However, Grabchak Evgeny, Russia’s deputy minister for energy, claims that proper regulation of Russia’s crypto space would benefit the country.
During a recent interview with TASS (a popular Russian news outlet), Grabchak stated that “if the rulers can legalize and regulate our crypto space, both the authorities and the citizens stand to gain massively.
Benefits For All
The government will earn revenue from crypto-related activities, while the citizens can empower themselves through the same activities. Hence, it is a win-win situation for both. More so, crypto activities have been ongoing even without government legalization. So, why not legalize and regulate it to make more profits?”
However, the deputy minister suggested that the regional authorities and not the federal authorities should be responsible for developing the crypto regulatory policy. He opined that allowing the regional authorities to develop the crypto regulatory policy will enable them to perform proper oversight functions over the nascent crypto space.
“For instance, once they are responsible for approving mining licenses, they will know the number of mining licenses they need to give that will enable them to maximize the energy available without negatively affecting energy distribution to other residents,” Grabchak added.
Appeal From Other Russian Ministries
Russia’s energy ministry isn’t the first ministry to appeal to the government for a regulation of the crypto space. Last month, the country’s economic development ministry made a similar appeal. The only difference between both ministries’ appeals is that the energy ministry wants all regions to be involved in all aspects of crypto operations. But, the economic development ministry only wants regions with excess energy supply to be involved in crypto-related activities, especially crypto mining.
The ministry of economic development also suggested that these areas would serve as mining hubs. There are two main benefits of this suggestion. There would be no need to have several mining centers, which saves set-up costs. Also, these areas won’t be negatively affected by the tremendous amount of energy consumed by crypto mining operations since they have power in abundance.
This appeal from the energy ministry is a sign that Russian ministries are gradually receptive to crypto. Russia’s energy ministry’s plea comes on the back of economic sanctions imposed on it by top western economic powers due to its invasion of Ukraine.