Russian Church To Pay Fine To Electricity Provider For Mining Cryptocurrency

By Rishma Banerjee

“Grace”, a church in Russia, according to a court ruling, will have to pay higher electricity fees for running cryptocurrency mining hardware on their property, and though it is an isolated case, it will undoubtedly have an impact on private citizens who are also running same such hardware, in their homes. They were sentenced to pay 1 million rubles which amount to roughly 15,000 USD.

Eastern Europe enjoys electricity rates which are subsidised which is why a lot of people mine crypto from the comforts of their own homes. But the current legislation requires those mining cryptocurrency to pay higher electricity rates. This is the reason why the evangelical organisation, located in Irkutsk, Russia has denied all claims that the electricity was indeed used to mine cryptocurrency.

Irkutskenegro, the regional provider of electricity had observed an electricity spike of significant magnitude from the church last year.  An inspection of the Church premises, conducted by the company has also resulted in the discovery of computing hardware necessary to mine Bitcoins (BTC), in a server room on the second floor. The company has also stated that this extra amount of electricity consumed by the church, in reality, poses a risk for the neighbouring areas.

The church, however, had rejected these claims, saying that the additional electricity being used was for heating purposes and the production of religious material, however, given that the time period in question was in the summer months, the courts have dismissed these explanations as unlikely.

This is not the first time that an organisation which did not have proper permissions and approvals were mining cryptocurrency. Some Russian engineers employed by the Russian Nuclear Centre were caught, earlier this year, for using a supercomputer to mine cryptocurrency. They are now facing criminal charges.

Though energy is much cheaper for individuals than for certain organisations, only time can tell, if this court verdict will affect the Russians mining crypto, in their own homes.