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Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings has partially finished issuing cryptocurrency in Russia due to geopolitical uncertainty and crypto winter.
Bloomberg reported on Thursday that SBI Holdings has halted mining operations in Russia’s crypto-mining-rich Siberia region, due to reasons such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and an ongoing bear market.
The Japanese online utility suspended mining operations in Siberia shortly after Russia began military intervention in Ukraine on February 24, a company spokesman said.
SBI’s crypto asset business posted a loss of 9.7 billion yen ($71 million) in Q2 2020. As a result, the group that supports Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group posted net losses of ¥2.4 billion ($17.5 million). posted its first quarterly loss in a decade.
Reports on SBI’s mining shutdowns in Siberia are related to the public mining information of SBI’s crypto mining subsidiary SBI Crypto. According to data from blockchain researcher BTC.com, SBI Crypto’s mining hashrate dropped by 40% from 5,600 petahashes per second (PH/S) in mid-February to 3,300 PH/S on August 18, 2022. or
An SBI spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the company has so far liquidated its entire mining operation in Russia. “The SBI Group has already stopped all mining in Siberia. And we are not mining in the rest of Russia,” the representative noted.
SBI has announced that it has no other crypto business in Russia, and plans to continue operating its Moscow-based commercial banking unit, SBI Bank.
Related: Looks like Russia is getting ready to blow up Bitcoin with flare gas
As previously reported, Russia emerged as one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining countries last year, becoming the third largest producer of BTC hashrate after the United States and Kazakhstan. The country quickly lost its hash rate lead as China moved back into the top three mining countries in early 2022, while many miners moved away from operations in Russia due to geopolitical uncertainty.
In April 2022, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on BitRiver, Russia’s largest crypto data center provider, which was involved in the massive importation of crypto mining devices from other countries. Some US mining companies such as Compass Mining later tried to liquidate $30 million worth of crypto mining hardware in Siberia to avoid fines.
Disclaimer: This article has been updated to indicate that SBI has stopped all mining operations in Russia.
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