Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, Andrei Lugovoi proposed to form a committee that ensures the legalization of crypto mining in Russia.

At the parliament session on Thursday, November 11, Andrei Lugovoi said that after the adoption of the digital financial assets law last year, Russia continues to lose tax revenues and has been standing still for a year and a half in regulating cryptocurrency mining. The deputy proposed to legalize mining.

“We have prepared a bill, we will introduce it soon, And we will regulate cryptocurrencies mining,” the parliamentarian said.

He believes that miners annually enrich themselves by $2 billion at the expense of the Russian population and at the same time do not pay taxes. In addition, the lack of crypto regulations makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to act against cryptocurrency frauds.

State Duma Chairman Viacheslav Volodin supported the deputy’s proposal and instructed to create an inter-committee working group to regulate cryptocurrency mining. Earlier the information appeared that the Russian Ministry of Economic Development is in favor of the recognition of mining as an entrepreneurial activity. The initiative was also supported by Anatoly Aksakov, head of the Committee on Financial Markets in the State Duma.

Circle has announced the launch of a venture capital fund, the main purpose of which will be to invest in attractive projects in the field of blockchain and digital assets.

“We announced the launch of Circle Ventures. We will be investing in teams and projects that align with our core mission of increasing global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of financial value” said Circle CEO Jeremy Allair.

Today, we announced the launch of Circle Ventures. We will be investing in teams and projects that align with our core mission of increasing global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of financial value. https://t.co/IYaEU5S8ak

— Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) November 9, 2021

The Circle is the main operator of USDC stable coin with a market cap of $34.4 billion. The firm also operates SeedInvest, a crowdfunding platform for startups.

“Since our inception, Circle has envisioned how to help scale the greater blockchain and crypto ecosystem,” said Jeremy Fox-Geen, CFO at Circle. “Circle Ventures is another way to contribute, and we’re excited to support our industry’s innovators and entrepreneurs and identify compelling early-stage companies, technologies, projects, and protocols to help realize our mission.”

Circle did not disclose the size of the fund, the company previously announced making USDC stable coin into a commercial cryptocurrency bank for which In May 2021, Circle raised $440 million in funding from FTX, Digital Currency Group, Fidelity Management, Valor Capital Group, and other investors.

Recall that in July, Circle revealed plans to enter the stock market through a SPAC deal with Concord Acquisition and received an evaluation of $4.5 billion.

With Kazakhstan facing power diminutions caused by an increase in cryptocurrency mining operations within the country, Kazakhstan is now looking to Russia, its neighbor to provide additional power capacity, RT reports.

Recently, the Director of the Electricity Development Department of Kazakhstan, Aidos Daribayev said that the state-owned energy firm Samruk-Energo began negotiations with Russian Energy giant Inter RAO to establish a joint partnership.

Aidos Daribayev further noted that the consumption of energy in the country increased by 8% during the first 10 months of the year 2021, While in previous years the growth rate was between 1 to 2% per year.

As per the state, this power outage is due to the rapid increase in the mining of cryptocurrency caused by China’s decision to prohibit all kinds of mining and crypto activities. In the wake of the law change in China, BTC mining equipment was shifted by mining companies to different countries like Kazakhstan.

In 2021, the electricity use in Kazakhstan reached 82.99 billion kWh. The Kazakhstan Energy Ministry attributed this high consumption to Bitcoin mining data centers in the country.

According to the ministry, about 50 data centers focused on the production of cryptocurrencies are located in Kazakhstan. Their load is 693.3 MW, and the total permitted capacity according to technical conditions is 972.3 MW.

Data centers use 5 MWh, and one such facility accounts for 3.6 million kWh per month, which is proportional to the consumption of about 24,000 apartments, the Ministry of Energy noted.

According to the ministry’s calculations, in order to provide mining farms with sufficient electricity, it is necessary to build additional energy sources of at least 1000 MW.

In early October, the Ministry of Energy presented a draft order limiting the power consumption of one mining farm to 1 MW, and the total capacity of farms in the country to 100 MW.

Following an absolute ban by China on all sorts of crypto, Kazakhstan became the second-largest crypto-miner in the world following the US.

Deputy energy minister of Kazakhstan, Murat Zhurebekov, said the surplus power of Russia will aid Kazakhstan to deal with the challenges.

Earlier this year, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev approved a bill to restrict Bitcoin miners to pay extra charges for their electricity. The overcharge of 1 Kazakhstani tenge ($0.0025) per kilowatt-hour will be appended to all crypto mining processes.