In Malaysia, more than 1000 PCs were destroyed. The reason for this is fraudsters who tapped into the state power grid for free. Now the police have destroyed mining hardware worth around 1 million euros.
Are you frustrated with miners, the high power consumption they cause, or the fact that miners are buying hardware away from gamers? In Malaysia, the police have now arrested 8 individuals who were illegally mining Bitcoins with mining hardware (via thestar.com). The problem was not mining itself, but the way these individuals went about it.
What happened? The authorities in Malaysia have made a strike against miners who illegally farmed Bitcoins. The fraudsters unlawfully gained access to the power grid and siphoned off electricity without paying for it. This is reminiscent of the fraudsters who farmed FIFA currency with PS4 consoles. Here too, the wrongdoers were caught due to electricity theft.
The fraudsters in Malaysia are said to have stolen electricity worth 8.4 million Malaysian Ringgit. This amounts to approximately 1.7 million euros.
The confiscated hardware did not survive the day, as the police literally crushed the hardware. The mining hardware likely had the least to do with the situation.
Police destroys mining hardware worth 1 million euros
Here you can watch the action: The video on YouTube is only about 50 seconds long but shows the full extent of the police action: A steamroller is used to crush a total of 1069 PCs. This will especially please those who hold little or no regard for miners.
The police claims to have destroyed hardware worth 5.4 million Malaysian Ringgit, which is 1.06 million euros (via thestar.com). The action took place between February and April and was a joint operation by the police and the energy company Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB).
For those surprised and wondering why there are no graphics cards like a GeForce RTX 3080 seen being destroyed, you are correct. The computers being destroyed here are not large GPU mining rigs as seen in images and photos.
Miners opted for a special mining PC instead of graphics cards
The hardware primarily being destroyed here consists of so-called ASIC miners. ASIC miners are machines made up of a circuit board with a chip and a large fan. Often, these devices are already pre-programmed. You theoretically just need to start the ASIC miner and you can start mining directly.
The advantage is that you do not need a proper desktop PC where you would normally connect the graphics cards. ASIC miners are more user-friendly, provide significantly higher hash rates, and are much more energy-efficient than graphics card rigs.
However, many still rely on GPU mining rigs because the graphics cards can still be sold profitably after mining, unlike ASIC systems. These systems are primarily designed for mining.
In China, many users have started selling their mining hardware because the prices of cryptocurrencies have collapsed due to raids in China. In our article, we explain why you should still be careful before buying very cheap hardware from China:
Chinese miners flood the market with used graphics cards RTX 3080 – They are cheap, but be careful
