Flexpool takes principled stand against Russian aggression

In a message on various subreddits, Ethereum and Chia pool Flexpool has announced that they will be halting all services to Russian IPs and kicking off their Russian miners and farmers because of the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine.

I did not want to get political on my site yesterday. I have a lot of Russian readers, and I like almost every Russian I have met in the Chia community. I do not believe that any of them would invade another country, given the opportunity (unless Solana was a country). However, Russia has done great evil here and Flexpool is doing what they can about it. Their message is below, but please go read it and offer them your support.

As everyone has heard, Russia has launched a surprise invasion of Ukraine. The world is again faced with war, which could signal the next and possibly final war. This may be the biggest war since WW2, bigger than any of us, and goes beyond politics or nationality. This is a war at a time of peace when we are busy dealing with and recovering from the COVID-19 crisis. People are dying, and the world is guessing whether the West will join in or watch Ukraine fall to Putin’s ambitions.

We generally do not get involved in politics despite our personal views as a company. However, this is greater than politics, greater than anyone. This is a war that may end the world. It certainly is ending the lives of many innocent people in Eastern Europe. While there is little we can do, it would be wrong to profit off of it or fund it indirectly. We are canceling service to all Russian IPs and paying out outstanding balances.

We apologize to our Russian miners; many of you do not support the war. However, it is you who are supporting your nation. Without the people, Russia cannot operate. It is only through reducing the economic power of its people that we have a chance of affecting this war. We thank you for your loyalty, and I hope you understand that we do not make this decision lightly. Should this situation be resolved peacefully, we will happily welcome back all Russian miners and use our personal funds to make it up to you.

If you are in Ukraine and reading this now, know that the world is with you. We can’t change the situation ourselves. We call on other companies and people around the world to join us and make a difference together. This isn’t about politics; this is about preventing the end of the world and saving lives. Companies and people need to put the planet over profits in the modern era. Ukraine has four nuclear power plants. Even ignoring the chance of WW3, there is a chance of another Chernobyl should one of the plants be endangered. The Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan happened despite the plant having been forewarned so that they were shut down and built to withstand an earthquake. Everyone in Europe, Russia, and the Middle East are in danger of nuclear fallout should the worst happen. Notice that the world will only end not because people do something but because people know yet choose to do nothing.

Flexpool

Now, I think its possibly a little naïve to hold ordinary Russians responsible for Putin’s actions considering the personal cost borne by those who oppose him domestically. But at the same time Flexpool is making an ethical choice not to send money into Russia anymore because they are correct just spending money from the outside world in Russia helps the war machine.

And I think that is the important point that I think all farming and mining pools should consider – by sending foreign money into Russia right now you are supporting the invasion of Ukraine. Even if only tangentially. Buying milk in Russia from a private grocer, if done with outside money, helps to circulate hard currency in their economy and reduces the effectiveness of sanctions. And cryptocurrency is going to be a popular way for Russian oligarchs to attempt to evade sanctions meant to punish for this invasion. I would like anyone sending crypto to Russia, pools and other businesses, to strongly consider this. Some things are more important than a neutral, global network. Or from another angle, we cannot have a neutral, global network while land invasions are underway.

I really appreciate that Flexpool has considered this, and made the hard decision. I know the team at Flexpool fairly well as these things go, and while I may frequently disagree with them on technical or other Chia-related matters on this we are in total agreement. Russia is doing great evil here. It takes a lot of moral courage to be the first to do something that might upset your user base, and Flexpool did not hesitate.

There is not a ton we can do as farmers individually here, but some folks are running the following script to block all connections to Russia from their farm in order to boot Russia from the distributed network. I am going to share it here for anyone that does want to join Flexpool in their boycott.

# Block incoming connections from Russian IPs to your Chia node using iptables and ipset.
# Adapted from https://mtxserv.com/vps-server/doc/how-to-block-ip-addresses-by-country
# Execute as root or using sudo.
 
# 1. Install ipset:
apt install ipset
# or
yum install ipset
 
# 2. Create a new ipset called "ru".
ipset create ru hash:net,port
 
# 3. Create a file with the following contents, make it executable:
#!/bin/bash
 
COUNTRIES=('ru')
 
ipset flush countries
 
for i in "${COUNTRIES[@]}"; do
    echo "Ban IP of country ${i}"
 
    for IP in $(wget -O - https://www.ipdeny.com/ipblocks/data/countries/${i}.zone)
    do
        ipset add ru $IP,8444
    done
done
 
# 4. Execute the file you have just created to fill the ipset, it should take only a few seconds.
 
# 5. And finally, create an iptables entry to put the new ipset to work.
iptables -I INPUT -m set --match-set ru src -j DROP