Japan's Financial Giant SBI Group to Shut Down Crypto Mining Operations in Russia

Japanese financial giant SBI Group announced that it will shut down its crypto mining operations in the entire country of Russia.

Since the outbreak of the big Russian-Ukrainian war on February 24 this year, the company has terminated its crypto mining operations in Russia’s Siberia region.

Chief Financial Officer Hideyuki Katsuchi announced plans to sell machinery and exit but did not reveal when the withdrawal from Siberia would be completed, according to Bloomberg.

The company said the suspension of mining in Siberia made the crypto-asset business report a pretax loss of 9.7 billion yen ($72 million) in the three months ended June 30, the first quarterly loss in a decade.

At the same time, according to the data of blockchain browser BTC.com, the mining hash rate of SBI Crypto also decreased by nearly 40%, from 5786.96 PH/S per second on February 25 to 3,563.75 PH/S on August 19, 2022.

The U.S. cryptocurrency mining company Compass Mining is looking for buyers for its equipment stranded in Russia to avoid sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department.

The price tag on the pieces of mining equipment in the Russian region is pegged at $30 million.

In April 2022, the United States announced that it would add Russian cryptocurrency mining company Bitriver to its sanctions list. Due to geopolitical uncertainty, many miners have chosen to avoid doing business in Russia.