European Carbon Is Expensive: Russian Bitcoin Mining Takes Over

A carbon quota rising on one side and machines turning off in Europe and turning on in Russia on the other… Three Vietnamese researchers have just put numbers on a phenomenon we already suspected. The European carbon tax would have an unexpected side effect on the geography of Bitcoin mining.

A study documenting the carbon leakage for Bitcoin Mining

The three Vietnamese researchers Pham Ngoc Toan, Le Tran Trung Hieu, and Nguyen Vu Trung Nguyen examined daily emissions from the electric sector between 2019 and 2025. The European Union, Russia, and the rest of the world were scrutinized. The purpose is to combine these data with Bitcoin closing prices, to verify if the carbon price in Europe really influences the location of mining. A statistical correlation emerges between the price of European carbon allowances and carbon emissions in Russia. In other words, when paying to pollute becomes more expensive in Europe, Bitcoin mining migrates eastward at the hours when doing so becomes most profitable.

This correlation does not appear when comparing the EU to the rest of the world, because Russia stands out. Companies owning Bitcoin mining equipment on both sides reportedly turn off their European machines to turn on their Russian machines depending on the cost of energy and carbon. For now, Russia has no carbon pricing structure. Mining there is therefore structurally cheaper, without a single server needing to be physically moved. So can a climate policy, unintentionally, shift pollution rather than reduce it?

Russia Become a Crypto Financial Center?

Russia is not content with hosting low-carbon-cost Bitcoin mining because in parallel, it is building a genuine financial infrastructure around crypto. The Moscow Exchange (MOEX) plans to launch as early as September 2026 its first perpetual futures contracts on Bitcoin and Ethereum:

• Settled in rubles;
• Reserved for qualified investors;
• No fixed expiration date.

The timing is no coincidence because this launch coincides with the entry into force, on September 1, of a new Russian law regulating digital currency. Moscow does not legalize the free purchase of Bitcoin for its citizens… far from it. Instead, it builds a framework where exposure to crypto circulates only through financial channels strictly supervised by the State. MOEX even plans to extend its offer to ten digital assets futures.

Russia quietly attracts part of the Bitcoin (BTC) mining that Europe makes too costly, while patiently building financial tools to turn this energy raw material into a domestic investment product. This, under the full control of its regulators. Except that since 2025, Russia itself has started banning mining in some regions. The door that the European carbon price seems to slightly open might well close.