Malaysian Authorities Destroys $1.2 Mln Worth Of Illegal Bitcoin Mining Rigs.
2021-07-17 | Eddy Morgan
![Malaysian Authorities Destroys $1.2 Mln Worth Of Illegal Bitcoin Mining Rigs.]()
Authorities in Malaysia destroyed more than $1.2 Mln worth of Bitcoin mining rigs after they were confiscated for operating illegally.
Within a video posted today via the native news outlet DayakDaily, police
in the city of Miri on the island of Borneo
as well as the Sarawak Energy company
arranged for a steamroller to run over 1,069 Bitcoin [
BTC] miners. The rigs were reportedly confiscated from residents of Malaysia attempting to illicit mine the cryptocurrency using stolen electricity between February to April.
In line with an official report from Malaysian newspaper
The Star, the disposal of the mining machines - worth roughly $1.26 Mln -
occurred at the Miri district
police station today. Authorities outlined that three houses
within the area had been destroyed this year
due to illicit Bitcoin mining, while the Sarawak Energy company lost an estimated $2 Mln from the operations.
It’s unclear why authorities in Malaysia outright destroyed the miners
instead of attempting to reap some value from the parts. Officials in Iran, Turkey and other countries where mining is banned or restricted
are conducting raids on illicit cryptocurrency mining operations
for some time, often
leading to arrests, fines, and seizure of the rigs.
Additionally, there are few if any reports of the machines being crushed by a steamroller or destroyed in so thorough
a fashion. Chinese authorities reportedly
auctioned over 2,000 rigs earlier in February that had been seized for similar reasons.
The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance
estimates that Malaysia contributed 3.44% to Bitcoin’s total monthly hash rate as of April. The country
has an annual energy consumption of over 147 terawatt-hours.
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