According to information from the CoinDesk news portal , a Russian state nuclear plant takes a step towards cryptocurrencies. This is Rosatom, which will offer its surplus energy to Bitcoin mining farms that wish to participate in the project.

In order to create the conditions to house the mining equipment, Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corportation manufactured a special place. Its production had an approximate cost of US $ 5 million. With such investment, it seeks to create the best conditions for the service.

The headquarters of the facilities are located in Udomlya, in the Oblast (province) of Tver. Also, Segei Nemchenkov, president of Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary data center of Rosatom, the plant for miners, has a power capacity of 30 megawatts.

The plant will not have its own Bitcoin mining farms
An important aspect of this news is that the board of the nuclear plant assures that they will not have their own Bitcoin mining farms. In other words, its only function is to offer surplus energy to those businesses that need it.

In this sense, they explain, that the plant’s goal is to diversify, providing services to modern digital centers that require large consumption. Among the businesses of this type, they have data storage companies and now those dedicated to the extraction of digital currencies.

” In both cases, both in Bitcoin mining and in database, we have two players with a stable demand for energy ,” said Nemchenko. Likewise, he added that, for the nuclear firm, it is a ” great opportunity for diversification .”

It should be noted that Russia is one of the countries with the largest number of active farms in the world. Abandoned facilities in remote areas of Siberia have become the favorite haunts of mining companies. Low temperatures and infrastructures inherited from the Soviet era are a potential that other countries do not have.

The first of the state-owned companies to take this step
Bitcoin mining has been met with strong suspicion from powerful economic and political sectors in Russia. However, the aforementioned nuclear energy company becomes the first state-owned firm to open its doors for the cryptocurrency business.

Another important aspect to highlight is that the company assured that it has plans to open other locations with the same objective. Now the data centers and hosting sites for the company’s Bitcoin mining farms will be located in various locations in the Russian Federation. It is important to underline that, as a whole, they will offer up to 240 megawatts.

As for prices, they are equivalent in rubles to 5 cents per kilowatt per hour. It is not one of the best options when it comes to cheap energy. For example, in some provinces of China, you can get prices of 3 cents for the same energy measure.

Despite this, Rosatom already enters the scene as one of the heavyweights when it comes to providing energy for Bitcoin mining.

Is mining legal in Russia?
The Kremlin’s relationship with Bitcoin mining can be described as a little more than complex. Numerous attempts and proposals have been heard regarding its ban. So far, all of them have failed, but business remains in limbo in that Eurasian nation. The authorities will have the last word sooner or later.

While crunch time arrives, Bitcoin mining farms continue to operate as normal. However, other aspects related to cryptocurrencies if they are considered illegal within the territory of the Federation.

These include trading with digital currencies, which is strictly prohibited. Thus, portals such as Binance , Localbitcoins and other platforms have been blocked by regulators. There is another bill pending.

According to this, taking into account trading with cryptocurrencies, miners would be prohibited from receiving rewards in cryptocurrencies for their activities. In other words, the bitcoins that the Blockchain network pays to the miners of that currency, in Russia will go to the State, which will decide the equivalent payment to the miners in local currency.