BitRiver, Russia’s largest Bitcoin mining operator, is facing a major crisis after its founder Igor Runets was placed in pre-trial detention for a minimum of two months. The entrepreneur is being prosecuted for an alleged fraud case involving nearly one billion rubles, approximately 12.5 million dollars, related to mining machines ordered by a subsidiary of the energy conglomerate En+. Its parent company, Fox Group, has already been under insolvency proceedings since January due to a debt of approximately 9.2 million dollars to the same group. Founded in 2017, BitRiver operated up to fifteen data centers totaling 533 megawatts of capacity, representing more than half of Russia’s industrial mining, and has been subject to US sanctions since April 2022.
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