"As Bloomberg reports, local law enforcement is hunting down about 14,000 illegal Bitcoin mining operations in Malaysia, which they say have stolen around $1.1 billion in electricity over the last five years. Police have resorted to using drones and even handheld sensors that can pick up irregular power use to catch them in their act, a bizarre game of cat-and-mouse that highlights how lucrative mining the digital token can be - if the power is on someone else's dime, at least."
"Malaysia's deputy minister of energy transition and water transformation, Akmal Nasir, who chairs a special task force specifically set up to crack down on illegal Bitcoin mining, told Bloomberg. "You can actually even break our facilities. It becomes a challenge to our system." Rolling power outages in Iran last year, for instance, sparked a heated debate over the role of illegal Bitcoin mining. Kuwait similarly cracked down on crypto mining earlier this year amid a "major" power crisis that has led to blackouts."
About 14,000 illegal Bitcoin mining operations in Malaysia are accused of stealing roughly $1.1 billion worth of electricity over five years. Law enforcement uses drones and handheld sensors to locate high-power usage sites. The thefts have caused significant financial losses for the state-owned utility Tenaga Nasional and pose risks to grid stability and infrastructure. Authorities warn that mining operations can damage facilities and trigger outages. Similar crackdowns occurred in Iran and Kuwait after rolling blackouts and power crises linked to unauthorized crypto mining activity. Global Bitcoin mining consumes massive amounts of electricity annually.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]