Japanese SBI Holdings, the parent company of the SBI Crypto miner, has ceased cooperation with the Russian data center operator BitRiver under US sanctions. This is reported by CoinDesk with reference to knowledgeable sources.

The SBI Crypto division hosted the mining machines on the basis of BitRiver sites in Siberia.

BitRiver has neither confirmed nor denied that SBI Holdings or its subsidiary are customers.

“SBI Group has already stopped all production in Siberia. And we are not engaged in mining in the rest of Russia. A spokesperson for SBI Holdings responded to CoinDesk’s request.

SBI Crypto CFO Hideyuki Katsuchi said in an earlier interview with Bloomberg that they are trying to sell their equipment in the country following the sanctions restrictions in the Russian Federation. However, he did not elaborate on how this could be achieved without the involvement of hosting companies.

The fact that mining companies are helping Russia circumvent Western sanctions OFAC.

Financial holding SBI Holdings remains linked to the Russian Federation, as it still maintains a bank branch in the country, according to its latest quarterly financial report.

The company has rarely disclosed information about its mining business and has not previously mentioned a presence in Russia. In 2020, even mention of the division’s manufactured chips and ASIC miners disappeared from earnings reports.

An SBI spokesperson did not explain why this information was kept confidential.

After the company left Russia for the second quarter of 2022, SBI Holdings lost 9.7 billion yen ($71 million) in profit before tax.

Of that amount, about 7.2 billion yen ($52 million) was due to “temporary factors”, including the drop in cryptocurrency prices. As a result, the loss of 2.5 billion yen ($19 million) can be directly attributed to the termination of cooperation with Russia.

As of June 30, total assets of SBI Holdings stood at 18.6 trillion yen (approximately $136 billion).

According to BTC.com, SBI Crypto ranks 11th among mining pools at the time of writing. Hash rate is 1.26 EH/s. According to Blockchain.com, the total computing power of the pool on the Bitcoin network has dropped by about a third since February.

Recall that in April, the US Treasury imposed sanctions against the BitRiver group of companies engaged in mining cryptocurrencies in the Russian Federation. Company founder Igor Runets said in a comment to ForkLog that he sees this step as unfair competition.

That same month, Compass Mining, a provider of bitcoin mining equipment and services, decided to sell the equipment hosted on BitRiver.

At the same time, the Russian data centers operator ongoing collaboration With a mining company from UAE Phoenix Technology Consultants. In November 2021, BitRiver announced an agreement to provide Phoenix with 300 MW of hosting capacity by the end of 2022.

Phoenix CEO Munaf Ali did not comment on the relationship with BitRiver, only adding that “the company operates widely in the Russian Federation.”

Read ForkLog bitcoin news in our Telegram – cryptocurrency news, courses and analysis.