Russia bans cryptocurrency mining in Moscow due to the capital region's 1 GW mining load

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed Government Decree No. 936 banning cryptocurrency mining and participation in mining groups throughout Moscow, the entire Moscow Oblast, eight districts of the Kursk Oblast, and the city of Lgov.

8/4/20265 min read

Geographical scope of Decree No. 936

The geographical scope of the decree is precisely defined. The entire city of Moscow falls within its scope. Moscow Oblast, the administrative region surrounding the capital encompassing dozens of cities and towns within the broader Moscow metropolitan area, also falls within its scope. In Kursk Oblast, eight districts are named: Belovsky, Bolshesoldatsky, Glushkovsky, Korenevsky, Lgovsky, Rylsky, Sudzhansky, and Khomutovsky districts, along with the city of Lgov.

The inclusion of regions within the Kursk Oblast in the decree is justified by energy infrastructure rather than urban economics. Kursk's power grid is under immense pressure due to the war in a neighboring country, its border location, and active military operations in neighboring regions, further straining the grid infrastructure, which is already overloaded by mining activities. The eight districts named in the decree are those where the combination of grid constraints and mining loads poses the most serious risk of power supply disruptions, making them a priority for restrictions regardless of Moscow's decision.

The energy calculations behind the ban.

Mr. Voropanov also stated at the time that the total capacity of data centers in Moscow and Moscow Oblast could increase to 3.6 GW by 2032, equivalent to approximately 17% of the grid's projected maximum load capacity. The projected 3.6 GW figure includes all data center usage across both cryptocurrency mining and traditional computing infrastructure, but currently mining accounts for the largest share of that total, with an estimated 1 GW consumption from mining representing about 28% of the total projected 3.6 GW by the end of the ban period.

At least 65 data centers in the Moscow region currently have a combined capacity of 734 MW. The gap between the current capacity of 734 MW and the estimated current consumption of 1 GW suggests that a significant portion of Moscow's cryptocurrency mining activity takes place outside of formal data center infrastructure, in informal residential, commercial, and industrial areas, where energy consumption is more difficult to measure and manage than the load of dedicated data centers on organized power connections.

A May 2026 assessment report by the Government Electricity Committee of the Ministry of Energy concluded that the economic contribution of the mining sector to the Moscow region was insufficient to justify its energy consumption, formalizing a cost-benefit assessment that distinguished Moscow's ban from mere arguments about energy scarcity: officials assessed that the mining sector generated insufficient economic value relative to grid electricity consumption compared to other alternative electricity uses for industrial, commercial, and residential purposes in Russia's most productive economic region.

Russia's map of regions banning cryptocurrency mining is expanding.

Moscow's decree adds to the framework of regional restrictions that have developed significantly since the end of 2024. In December 2024, a similar ban was issued for Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, Chechnya, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Zaporizhzhia, and the Kherson region. Those initial restrictions targeted southern regions and occupied territories, which faced a combination of energy supply constraints, inadequate grid infrastructure, and difficulties in maintaining a stable power supply in conflict zones.

Moscow joins the growing blacklist, which already includes Buryatia, Trans-Baikal, and ten other regions, with separate lawmakers pushing for prison sentences for illegal miners. The pattern of sequentially adding regions to the mining ban map shows that Russia's approach to regulating cryptocurrency mining is not a single national decision but rather an evolving framework in which energy authorities identify specific areas where mining creates unacceptable grid pressure and progressively add them to the banned list. Moscow's inclusion represents a qualitative escalation, shifting the focus from energy-scarce peripheries to the country's economic and administrative centers.

Legalization and restriction simultaneously

The ban in Moscow created a noticeable tension in Russia's cryptocurrency mining policy, which critics and industry observers have noted. Russia officially legalized industrial cryptocurrency mining by the end of 2024, establishing a government registration system for commercial operators and creating the legal framework that allowed Sberbank to launch its planned cryptocurrency wallet and the broader development of Russia's digital asset market under the "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights" bill. The 2024 legalization was internationally understood as Russia using its cryptocurrency infrastructure to circumvent sanctions, particularly on cross-border payments outside the banking channels that Western sanctions had closed.

The expansion of the regional ban since 2024, now reaching the capital itself, demonstrates that regional legalization and prohibition are simultaneously Russian policy: mining is legal nationwide, permitted through a registration system, and simultaneously banned in an ever-expanding list of areas where grid regulators have determined it poses an unacceptable risk to energy supply. In fact, legal mining in Russia is increasingly concentrated in Siberia and the Far East, where abundant hydropower resources, sparse populations, and long-distance power transmission infrastructure make mining economically viable and grid-compatible in ways that Moscow's dense urban grid cannot accommodate.

Assessment and Conclusion

Russia's 17.2% share of the global hash rate makes the ban on Bitcoin mining in the Moscow region the largest geographic event affecting hash rate distribution since China's 2021 ban. However, the impact on the global hash rate is expected to be partial, not total, because not all of Russia's 17.2% market share comes from Moscow and restricted areas. Permitted mining regions in Siberia, the Ural Mountains, and the Far East hold the majority of Russia's industrial mining capacity, with mining activity in the Moscow region representing only a small fraction of the total national share that Hashrate Index and other analytics providers haven't yet separated from Russia's overall figures in publicly available data.

The six-and-a-half-year ban, extending to 2032, also sends a longer-term structural signal to global mining geography: Russian mining activity will increasingly concentrate in Siberia and the Far East, benefiting from cost advantages due to abundant renewable energy and fossil fuels, while energy-constrained urban areas will gradually withdraw from this activity, potentially accelerating the concentration of Russian hash rates in the hands of large-scale professional operators who are more likely to operate in areas with more stable energy supplies than informal and population-scale operations that urban restrictions have significantly reduced.

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Compiled and analyzed by HCCVenture

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