Ihor Kolomoisky. Source: A video screenshot, Youtube, Ukrainian Truth
Ukrainian oligarch and former governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ihor Kolomoisky, had reportedly started crypto mining at a troubled steelworking factory in the US – and he may just be getting started.
According to Radio Liberty, “current and former employees” of the plant, CC Metals & Alloys (CCMA) in Kentucky has shut down its furnaces – once used to make alloys such as ferro-silicon.
However, the report’s authors and its anonymous sources claim that the plant’s owners “have begun a new method of making money to cover their losses in the steel alloy market: namely crypto.”
The sources added that “a few years ago” Kolomoisky and his Ukrainian partners Mordechai Korf and Uriel Laber of Miami ordered an abandoned warehouse that once stored special alloys and filled “hundreds, if not thousands” of oil rigs for mining cryptoassets .
If the report is indeed true, then the CCMA crypto mining is not an anomaly. A growing number of crypto miners have settled in the Tennessee River Valley in recent years to take advantage of the region’s notoriously low electricity prices.
One recent employee alleged that “entire truckloads” of computer hardware were brought into the CCMA warehouse, which the employee claims was “independent of the plant itself and not affected by the downsizing.
And the same media company claims that a spokesman for Korf and Laber announced back in July that the plant had asked a “third party” to set up a “data center” in the plant that would use “artificial intelligence and blockchain technology” to help To “diversify” the profits – but without specifying how much the Ukrainian businessmen had spent on the project or who they had hired to carry out the work.
The spokesman for Korf and Laber stated that further crypto mining projects are already in preparation.
“Both artificial intelligence and blockchain technology are high-energy industries and are expected to grow exponentially over the next decade, reaching a market value of $ 20 billion. Based on the success of the first pilot, we can expand that line having many business sources is for.” CCMA a prudent step. “
Crypto mining has become increasingly popular for those looking to take advantage of gated assets in former industrialized countries that are in tougher times. In 2018, Politico reported that miners in Washington were opening stores in former fruit stores and abandoned car washes.
Site Selection also reported in 2018 that Bitcoin miners (BTC) were now looking to Montana.
And Fortune recently stated that a public utility in Chelan County, Washington, is grappling with “a group of mining companies asking to develop the county’s plentiful hydropower resources.”
Kolomoisky – one of the richest people in the country – is a co-founder of PrivatBank, one of the largest banks in Ukraine, although he has repeatedly faced controversy over his financial dealings with the financial company. He also has close business relationships with the Ukrainian football club Dnipro.
____ ____
Learn more:
The substation burns out as bitcoin mining in Abkhazia deteriorates
Venezuelan Army engineers start mining Bitcoin
Henry Ford’s Energy Standard: A 100 Year Old Bitcoin Prediction
This is how institutional actors are helping the bitcoin mining industry to grow
Bitcoin miners are employing new strategies to hedge against risk
Comments are closed.