Moscow is off-limits for Bitcoin miners. Through 2032.
Government decree No. 936, signed July 25 and published July 31 according to local media, prohibits cryptocurrency mining in Moscow, the surrounding Moscow Region and parts of Kursk through Dec. 31, 2032. The restriction is the latest in a series aimed at freeing up electricity capacity for non-mining uses.
In practice, operators with rigs in the capital face a six-year shutdown window. No carve-out for registered miners.
The decree goes further than a simple equipment ban. It also bars participation in mining pools, not just direct mining. The Energy Ministry said a year-round restriction was needed to reduce the risk of power-capacity shortages as energy-intensive mining facilities connect to regional grids, CoinDesk reported.
The numbers explain the urgency. Mining currently consumes roughly 1 gigawatt in the Moscow power system, Interfax reported. The news agency projected that data-center capacity in the Moscow region could reach 3.6 GW, or 17% of peak demand, by 2032.
Russia ranked as the world’s second-largest Bitcoin mining jurisdiction by hash rate in the first quarter of 2026. The country accounted for an estimated 175 exahashes per second. That is about 16.4% of global Bitcoin computing power, per Luxor’s Hashrate Index. The U.S. remains first. What share of that capacity sits in the newly restricted areas is not clear. CoinDesk noted it is unclear what mining capacity was located in the region covered by the decree.
The Moscow decree adds the capital itself to a growing list. Russia legalized registered crypto mining in 2024, then moved quickly to curtail it in power-strained areas. It banned mining in 10 regions through March 2031 later that year, citing electricity demand. Year-round restrictions were subsequently extended to southern Irkutsk and most areas of Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai. This is the third such expansion since the 2024 legalization.
The restrictions sit alongside a parallel track of policy that treats mined bitcoin as a foreign-trade instrument rather than a domestic currency. Russian companies have used domestically mined bitcoin in international payments after legal changes designed to counter Western restrictions, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in December 2024, Reuters reported. Russia’s parliament passed a crypto market law in July 2026. Rules take effect Sept. 1. The law maintained a ban on domestic crypto payments but preserved exceptions for foreign-trade settlements and transactions involving mined cryptocurrency, CoinDesk reported.
That dual posture leaves the country’s hash rate split between sanctioned-tied foreign-trade use and a shrinking domestic footprint. Restrict where mining can happen. Channel mined coins toward cross-border payments. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned mining operator BitRiver and 10 subsidiaries in 2022, saying Russian mining companies helped the country monetize energy resources and could offset the impact of sanctions.
What happens to rigs already running in Moscow and the Moscow Region is not stated in the decree reporting. No operator reactions were cited. The decree’s enforcement mechanisms, if any, are not specified in the source material.
