Candidate for NABU head has been mining cryptocurrencies in his garage since 2017

One of the candidates for the position of director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Vitaliy Vlasiuk, earned a significant part of his capital by mining cryptocurrencies. This was reported by the Judicial and Legal Newspaper.

During an interview with the selection committee, Vlasyuk said that since 2017 he has been mining various cryptocurrencies, including BTC, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum. «We have different equipment because we have been in this process since 2017. We mined not only bitcoin, but also Bitkesh, ETH, and other cryptocurrencies. We tried to take advantage of this process,» Vlasyuk explained, though he did not specify who else he was referring to besides himself.

Vlasyuk paid 25,000 hryvnias for the monthly electricity consumption in November 2020. According to him, the mining equipment was partially located «in the garage and other places» because the units «can also be used as a heating system.» The maintenance of the devices cost about UAH 20,000−25,000 per month. In total, Vlasyuk’s income from cryptocurrency mining in 2020 amounted to approximately UAH 3 million, of which he paid 5% in taxes.

According to the declaration, Vlasiuk currently owns about 10.18 BTC. The official keeps his digital assets on crypto exchanges and cold wallets. He could not provide a full list of transactions, as he «had millions of such transactions.»

«There is equipment that generates bitcoins. It drips a little bit every day. Then, on some days, I withdraw the cryptocurrency and transfer it to a cold wallet,» Vlasyuk explained the inaccuracies in his declaration to Radio Liberty. At the same time, the candidate for the NABU position could not name the public address of the wallet because he allegedly does not know it. The last transaction on Vlasiuk’s wallet was recorded in April 2021.

As a reminder, Bitcoin Magazine Ukraine recently published the TOP 10 richest bitcoin owners in our country. The ranking is headed by former Odesa City Council member Dmytro Palpatine, who owns more than 7,700 BTC (equivalent to $ 178 million as of February 1). The top three also includes Ivan Boichenko, a deputy of the Odesa District Council, with 5,750 BTC ($ 133 million), and Dmytro Holubov, a member of the VIII convocation, with 4,376 BTC ($ 101 million).