Posted on 07/19/2021 4:42:03 PM PDT by dynachrome
A total of 1,069 units of bitcoin mining machines worth RM5.3mil were seized in a joint operation carried out by police and Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) in Miri between February and April.
Miri police chief ACP Hakemal Hawari said eight individuals were also arrested for being involved in mining activities using electricity stolen from SEB's electricity supply lines during the period.
"A total of six people have been successfully charged under Section 379 of the Penal Code for electricity theft and have been fined up to RM8,000 and jailed for up to eight months," he said in a statement here Friday (July 16).
All seizures made in the cases that had been settled in court were disposed of at the Miri district police headquarters today.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com.my ...
Malaysia.
Don’t steal juice or you go to the slammer.
Why wouldn’t the cops auction this stuff off or sell on eBay to some other country?
Steamroller a bit of overkill.
A hammer would have sufficed. Then, wiped... like with a cloth.
I wonder why power companies aren’t diversifying with their own bitcoin mining operations? Their cost to income ratio beats all legitimate miners.
Fake news that is not a steam roller
Ones that are regulated public utilities are likely prohibited by their state regs. (just a guess)
Fake money, Bitcoin mining isn't mining.
Did anybody pick up the bit coins that may have popped out of the steam rolled computers while they were crushed?
What is 'fake' about a cryptographically secured and distributed ledger?
While I generally support cryptocurrency as an important alternative to government-controlled currency, it can’t continue to exist over the long run with the current model. The power needs alone will at some point become a limiting factor, and no medium of exchange should negatively impact everyday citizens who aren’t participating in it.
I know that an essential part of the model is to make new units of currency extremely difficult to create, thereby solidifying the currency’s value and limiting the potential for inflation, but there has to be a better way. The concept is just to create vast amounts of “make work” as a barrier to arbitrary money supply expansion. But that will always create negative unintended consequences. If instead of electronic calculations, cryptocurrency creation was based upon digging holes in the ground, pretty soon we would all be falling into holes every day, and shovels would cost $1,000. Not too much different from the current situation.

Over 1,000 bitcoin mining machines have been totally destroyed in Malaysia after they were seized for illegally mining the cryptocurrency using stolen electricity. The mining machines, worth about $1.26 million, were steamrolled in the Malaysian city of Miri and eight people have been arrested so far.
Well if theyve got the password they can still get the money
“Their paper $$ are worth what?”
Depending on timing and accumulation, I’d venture quite a lot.
Not bad, actually. A little over 4 to the US dollar.
Only on FR do we get this kind of insight! Everyone knows that plastic rectangles with stripes on the back and green paper with pictures of dead presidents are non-fake money.
“Why wouldn’t the cops auction this stuff off or sell on eBay to some other country?”
Damn shame really. The vid cards themselves would fetch quite a bit of coin given the ongoing shortages.
This is sort of news of the future.
It’s like reading about a story of the release of Win 3.11 in 1979.
Nobody really understands what it means.
Electricity theft for computer research?
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