Just saw that the CEO of BitRiver, one of Russia's biggest mining operations, got detained on suspicion of tax evasion. Igor Runets was picked up end of January and now he's under house arrest while they investigate. Pretty wild timing honestly - the guy had built up like $230M in net worth through mining, but things have been rough for BitRiver since the U.S. sanctions hit back in 2022. They've dealt with banks cutting ties (SBI dropped them), employees not getting paid on time, plus lawsuits from local infrastructure suppliers. The company's been operating these massive data centers in Siberia since 2017, but yeah, the suspicion around their tax situation and everything else piling up... makes you wonder how they bounce back from this if Runets stays locked down. Crypto mining in Russia is getting increasingly complicated.