A Russian design studio has developed a “beautiful” cryptocurrency mining rig. The fashionable “Freer” is a modular, customizable home mining device. It comes in different colors, displays and sets of ports, depending on the requirements of the client. Meanwhile, members of the Russian crypto community have urged the government to classify individual miners as self-employed which could lower their taxes from 13% to 3%.

Also read: California Passes Bill Defining Blockchain and Crypto Terms

Form Meets Function in the “Freer” Miner

You have to admit, mining rigs are not the best-looking pieces of engineering. That’s okay when talking about industrial-grade hardware; racks upon racks of ASICs in some former factory in Russia, China, or America. But domestic devices, homemade or purchased, are not aesthetically pleasing. They are often just a skeleton frame, with half a dozen video cards, cables and fans, and, if you are lucky, you’ll get all that in an ugly square box with the fans visible on the outside. Whatever the case, it’s not something you would want to see in your living room.

A Russian design studio has decided to remedy that. They’ve recently launched their first “beautiful” miner, an aesthetically pleasing home mining device that is modular and customizable. It offers a number of ports on the back, a choice of displays on the front showing the mined coins, and it comes in different color schemes. The designers have described their creation in a poem published on their website lauding its curved shapes, extraordinary beauty and discreetly hidden cooling system: “More fashionable than an iPhone, the new geek’s dream.”

The prototype, called “Freer”, comes as a shell and manufacturers are free to place their own mining hardware inside the box. Art Lebedev, the studio run by famous Russian designer, entrepreneur, and blogger Artemy Lebedev, has not wasted time on the engineering side but has focused primarily on the design aspect of the project. The company did not reveal details about the client who ordered its first artistic mining rigs but published some of the sketches drawn during the development of the final concept.

Lower Taxes for Miners Proposed in Russia

The fashionable mining rig has been announced at a moment when the Russian crypto community, not least miners, is eagerly awaiting the final decision of authorities in Moscow regarding the legalization and regulation of crypto-related activities such as cryptocurrency mining. Three bills dealing with the matter were voted on first reading this spring with their final adoption expected during the fall session of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament.

The new legislation should regulate various aspects of the crypto industry including the circulation and exchange of cryptocurrencies with rubles and foreign fiat. The taxation of crypto incomes and profits is one of the outstanding issues. Currently, revenues from crypto mining are subject to the Russian flat income tax rate of 13%. Different ideas have been discussed with the latest one coming from the Russian Association of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain (RACIB) and one of its members.

A company called Crypto Universe as well as RACIB has proposed to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov to allow private individuals dealing with mining to register as self-employed persons. This would lower their taxes to only 3-5%. According to Crypto Universe, there are more than 350,000 individual miners in the Russian Federation. Due to the lack of an adequate regulatory framework, many of them operate unofficially and cash out their minted coins illegally. As a result, the state treasury loses an estimated 2 billion rubles (almost $30 million) in uncollected tax annually.

What do you think about the latest mining news from Russia? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Art Lebedev.

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