Mining for Bitcoin in a Remote Russian Outpost
How old Soviet factories in Kaliningrad became a hub for the cryptocurrency
By Jemima Kelly
Andrei Mironovich used to sell “Baltic gold”, a nickname given to amber due to its colour and the fact that most of the world’s deposits of the fossilised resin are to be found along the northern European sea coast. But now he finds it more profitable to mine for “digital gold”, or bitcoin.
I met Mironovich on a recent trip to Kaliningrad. (Tucked between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic coast, the obscure Russian exclave gained wider recognition this month as a World Cup venue.) My initial communications with him were not via the encrypted messaging apps I often use with crypto types; rather, we were introduced in the headquarters of the Kaliningrad Region Development Corporation, a state-owned entity whose aim is to bring business into the region.
At the KRDC I was told how a couple of entrepreneurs from Moscow had recently been shown around two sites in the city, where they were looking to set up their own cryptocurrency mines — large data centres where specialised computers process transactions, consuming vast amounts of energy, in return for bitcoins. The entrepreneurs decided to take not just one but both sites, with an investment of $50m in…
