Ruble’s Drop Eases Pain of Lower Bitcoin Prices for Russia’s Miners

The global market meltdown has indirectly benefited Russia’s bitcoin miners, even as the cryptocurrency’s price tumbled along with other assets.

That’s because the Russian national currency has rapidly lost value, dropping from 60 rubles to the dollar to 80 in two weeks. In addition to the coronavirus pandemic weighing on all markets, the ruble has also taken a hit from the price war started by Saudi Arabia, which slashed the price of oil, Russia’s main import, to its lowest level in three years.

With the ruble plunging, the average price in Russia for electricity, one of the biggest costs for miners, also dropped. In Siberia, Russia’s main region for mining, the average price for power available to local mining farms fell from 5 cents per megawatt per hour to 4.

At the same time, the price of bitcoin (BTC), while plunging itself, still is calculated in U.S. dollars, which makes the bear market a bit less painful for mining farms in Russia, several such outfits told CoinDesk.

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