A local energy distributor is working to recover about $800,000 from illicit Cryptocurrency miners in Irkutsk Oblast.

As cryptocurrency mining activity grows increasingly common in Russia, one local region is struggling to maintain power stability amid massive inflows of new crypto mining operations.

Russia’s Irkutsk Oblast, a government area and Russia’s significant focus of shipping lanes from China, encountered a fourfold expansion in energy utilization in 2021 because of mining exercises, neighborhood news organization TASS covered Wednesday.