Russia’s Crypto Mining Titans Rake in $200M—Proof That Siberia’s Cold is Good for Something

BitRiver and Intelion just flexed their industrial-scale mining ops with a combined revenue haul that’d make Wall Street bankers blush—if they understood blockchain.

The numbers don’t lie (unlike some balance sheets):
$200 million in FY2024, scraped from Siberia’s frozen wastelands where electricity is cheaper than vodka. Who needs sanctions when you’ve got ASICs?

Meanwhile, traditional finance still thinks ‘proof-of-work’ is a gym membership.
Maybe they’ll wake up when these miners start buying their banks.

BitRiver, Intelion Continue to Dominate Russian Market

The media outlet used the country’s top 10 crypto miners’ latest public declarations to compile its data.

This means that the nation’s vast illegal crypto mining sector is still largely unaccounted for. But the data also revealed how much power the country’s top crypto mining players use.

It also reveals information about where the miners have built their biggest data centers and the types of energy mixes they use to power their rigs.

The data shows that BitRiver’s revenue for 2024 was RUB 10.286 billion (over $129 million). The same company used 533 MW of electrical power in 15 data centers.

BitRiver operates more than 175,000 crypto mining rigs and provides hosting and support to B2B clients.

The firm continues to operate centers in Irkutsk Oblast, the nation’s first Bitcoin mining hub. In recent months, mining in Irkutsk has caused major strains on the Siberian grid.

BitRiver also has centers in Krasnoyarsk, Orenburg, Tuva, Buryatia, Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

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The data also shows that BitRiver is looking at alternatives to conventional power grid-based solutions.

More than 30 MW of its capacity now comes from associated gas extracted at oil drilling sites fitted with turbine generators.

Nuclear Power

Intelion, meanwhile, posted total revenues of RUB 6.218 billion ($78 million) in FY2024, using 298 MW of energy.

The company has built many of its centers outside the more typical BTC mining hubs, operating in the Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Kemerovo, Samara, and Murmansk regions, as well as the Republic of Khakassia.

Intelion has also partnered with nuclear power providers such as Rosenergoatom, and has a center NEAR the Kalinin Nuclear Power plant in Tver.

The firm has also expanded its gas generation operations and is now working on providing crypto mining hardware for industrial enterprises that have idle power capacities.

The media outlet compiled a top 10 of Russian industrial miners by revenue. Nine of the firms on the list saw revenue growth in FY2024, with Intelion leading in this category.

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Smaller Players Also Posting Rapid Growth Rates

Several smaller firms also saw revenues climb last financial year. The most notable of these was third-paced Promminer, with revenues of RUB 4.761 billion ($59.8 million) and a capacity of 90 MW.

Unlike the “big two,” Promminer specializes in mobile data centers, which can be moved around the country as needed.

RBC noted that banks and leasing companies have shown an interest in financing the firm’s activities.

Earlier this year, Promminer announced it had brought a new data center online in the city of Voronezh.

Making up the rest of the list were Location (80 MW), R7miner (33 MW), Stella (120 MW), Mining Cluster (70 MW), CryptoReactor (75 MW), GIS Mining (53 MW), and BitCluster (80 MW).

The latter has revealed that it is developing crypto mining infrastructure in Ethiopia and Paraguay.

Sergey Bezdelov, the Director of the Industrial Mining Association, noted that Russia now “ranks second in the world in terms of mining volume, and first in terms of growth rates.”