OP's article:
Russia is Trying to Build a Major Bitcoin Mining Industry to Compete With China
Alexander Drozdenko, the governor of the Russian Leningrad region, has encouraged bitcoin miners to create, develop and deploy mining centers in Leningrad at the third annual Energy of Opportunities conference.
Local news publications including 47News reported:
“Production sites that are being released during the construction of new power units of the Leningrad nuclear power plant will be available for new residents as early as 2018.”
Earlier this year, several trusted sources including Bloomberg revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Internet advisor has been planning to launch an initial coin offering (ICO) campaign for a project called Russian Miner Coin (RMC) with a long-term vision of competing with the Chinese bitcoin mining industry and large-scale bitcoin mining equipment manufacturers such as Bitmain.
At a news conference, Putin’s aide Dmitry Marinichev announced his plans to raise over $100 million to establish a bitcoin mining center and a manufacturing line to produce ASIC miners. He stated:
“Russia has the potential to reach up to 30 percent share in global cryptocurrency mining in the future.”
Marinichev further emphasized the importance of Russia’s cheap electricity and explained that with lower costs, Russian mining centers would be able to compete with key players in the global bitcoin mining industry like Bitmain.
However, analysts remained skeptical regards to the model of RMC and the vision of Marinichev as Bitmain has recently raised $50 million from leading venture capital firms IDG and Sequoia. In an interview with Bloomberg, Bitmain representatives revealed that the company is valued at several billion dollars, which if true, would make Bitmain the most valuable company in the global bitcoin industry ahead of Coinbase.
It will be a challenge both financially and technologically for new companies like RMC to compete with Bitmain even with massive capital because Bitmain has remained as the leading bitcoin mining equipment manufacturer in the global mining market for the past three years and to create a replica of a mining equipment manufacturing line would require hundreds of millions of dollars.
But, RMC and the Russian mining industry could compete with China if the Chinese government decides to heavily regulate and restrict the bitcoin mining industry. Although key figures such as Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu have noted in the past that a ban on bitcoin mining in China is highly unlikely, recent reports suggest the Chinese government is actively considering the potential of restricting its bitcoin mining sector.
If China does restrict bitcoin mining operations and provides a difficult ecosystem for local miners, regions like Russiacould evolve into a major bitcoin mining market especially with the help of the government and with efficient regulations. While it is unlikely that the Chinese government will restrict its mining market, if emerging mining equipment manufacturers and miners in Russia can match the Chinese market in terms of technology and hashpower, there exists a possibility of Russia evolving into a major mining market in the future.
https://bitconnect.co/bitcoin-news/735/russia-is-trying-to-build-a-major-bitcoin-mining-industry-to-compete-with-china....
Thoughts. Russia has had a monopoly over the nuclear fuel market (refined uranium) for a long time now which makes their nuclear reactor operating costs lower than that of other countries. Russia's claims of being able to compete with the electricity costs of china which tend to rely upon coal and hydroelectric plants could be legitimate.
Russian produced ASICs could also be a tremendous advantage to the russian mining effort. Russia's technology could well be superior to china's, which could translate to better ASICs than whatever china produces.