Russian Oligarch Eyes Bitcoin Farms in Breakaway Transnistria

Moldova's pro-Russian President Igor Dodon on Thursday met Igor Chaika, son of Russian General Prosecutor Yury Chaika, and a wealthy businessman, to discuss business opportunities for Russian investors in Moldova. The duo met at the economic forum in St Petersburg.

"Russian businessmen are willing to invest large sums in our economy and create new businesses and jobs. To that end, however, entrepreneurs need to create an enabling environment," Dodon wrote on his Facebook page. 

But what has most interested both the Moldovan and Russian media about this meeting is Chaika's interest in investing in "mining farms" to produce the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in the breakaway region of Transnistria.

Mining farms are hardware that help create cryptocurrency by using the computing power of PC systems. This requires a lot of electrical energy, while Transnistria provides cheap prices using natural gas from Russia's Gazprom to produce electricity.

Chaika visited Moldova in September 2017 for talks with Dodon. The Moldovan President then wrote on Facebook about the prospects for business development with Russian investors.

Immediately after the meeting, Chaika went to Tiraspol to meet the Transnistrian leader, Vadim Krasnoselsky. 

In December 2017, Chaika then signed an agreement on behalf of the business association "Delovaya Rossiya" [Russian business] with the Transnistrian authorities to secure an easy pass for Transnistrian goods to the Russian markets.

Since 2013, Moldova has been under a Russian embargo for exports of foods and wine, but many companies from the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria and the autonomous region of Gagauzia in Moldova are exempted from the rule.

After this meeting, in...