A Russian government official has plans to open a new crypto mining center with the goal of cornering 20% of the market for bitcoin.
Dmitry Marinichev, Russian presidential internet ombudsman and CEO of the Russian Mining Company (RMC), has plans to repurpose an abandoned metal factory for crypto mining.
Speaking in an interview with Russian financial news outlet RBC, the CEO explained that the factory, located in the northern province of Karelia, was closed in 2018 due to U.S. sanctions. Marinichev and the RMC have plans to convert the space into a crypto mining farm which could potentially account for 20% of the cryptocurrency mining market.
Marinichev told RBC,
Our idea consists of converting the factory and selling its computer power as a service, that is to say, offering IT services.
Marinichev, despite his position with the Russian government, has been critical of its handling of technological innovation. In May 2018, the ombudsman criticized the government’s attempt to block messaging service Telegram, saying,
It is impossible to block it by blacklisting IP-addresses. That way, the battle will go on endlessly, even if you consider that Telegram’s client part is open-source software whose inner workings can be analysed and comprehended.
Marinichev was responsible for Russian Mining Company’s $43 million initial coin offering in 2017, which remains Russian’s largest ICO to date.
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