Russia’s Crypto Mining Tycoon Builds Fortune From Putin’s U-Turn
- Igor Runets worth an estimated $230 million from crypto mining
- Last month, Vladimir Putin signed law regulating the business
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In 2017, the same year that Russian entrepreneur Igor Runets got his MBA from Stanford University, he started building a data center for crypto mining in Siberia. It was a bold bet that the region’s cold winters and cheap hydropower might one day make him millions.
His company BitRiver managed to attract clients from all over the world, including the US and China. As Bitcoin boomed, surging almost 650% in the two years through November 2021, mining for the crypto currency became increasingly lucrative.