Compass Mining, an American Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency mining company, intends to sell $30M equipment currently stuck in Siberia to Russian buyers in order to avoid possible sanctions imposed by the US and the EU.
According to Whit Gibbs, CEO of the Texas-based company, the mining servers have a capacity of 12 megawatts and cannot be moved out of the country, and the proceeds from the sale will be used to pay off roughly 2,000 customers who own the equipment.
“I understand the sanctions; in this case, the punishment is disproportionate for American miners,” Gibbs reportedly said, noting that while recovering funds is critical, his clients will be forced to abandon Bitcoin mining.
The move follows the US Treasury’s recent decision to sanction Russia’s crypto mining firm BitRiver. The Treasury stated in a statement that it is targeting Russia’s virtual currency mining industry to ensure that “no asset, no matter how complex, becomes a mechanism for the [Vladimir] Putin regime to offset the impact of sanctions.”
However, BitRiver founder and CEO Igor Runets stated that the sanctions are an attempt by the United States to “change the global balance of power in favor of American companies.”
Runets went on to say that the company “has never provided services to Russian government institutions and has not worked with customers who are already sanctioned by Washington.”
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