At the beginning of 2022, the number of offers for the sale of mining equipment increased, while the demand for it, on the contrary, decreased. RBC was told about this by representatives of one of the largest online ad services and equipment distributors.
A representative of an unnamed marketplace also confirmed that the decline in demand for equipment is due to the January report of the Central Bank with a proposal to ban the issuance, circulation, and exchange of cryptocurrencies in Russia. One of the interlocutors of the publication noted that in the first month of the year the demand for video cards has significantly decreased.
According to him, the number of announcements for the sale of mining farms has increased. At the same time, the number of ads for the sale of ASICs (a microcircuit that is used for certain highly specialized tasks) increased by 17%, but they were searched less often by bancryptocurrencies.
Analysts of the VKontakte Announcements and Yula services said that they recorded an increase in the number of announcements for the sale of goods for mining by 3% in January compared to December. At the same time, the demand for such goods in January grew 1.5 times compared to December bancryptocurrencies.
An Ozon representative said that in January, their sales of mining products increased by 51% compared to the previous month. Wildberries said that from January 20 to January 26, Russians ordered 5.5 times more video cards than in the same period in 2021. At the same time, the service representative noted that he does not expect a significant change in demand for video cards, processors, and memory modules, since in addition to mining this equipment is actively used by gamers, specialists in the field of editing, and processing photos and videos.
- On January 20, 2022, the Central Bank released a report in which it proposed new restrictions on cryptocurrencies in Russia without their prohibition. On January 27, the Ministry of Finance proposed its plan to regulate cryptocurrency.
- The Central Bank criticized the position of the Ministry of Finance, adding that its approach threatens the emergence of a “parallel financial system.” On January 28, RBC reported that the Ministry of Finance, the FSB, the Ministry of Digital Development, and other departments agreed on a plan to regulate cryptocurrencies by the end of 2022.