Kuala Lumpur (AFP)
Malaysian police have devised a dramatic way to show their resolve in the fight against electricity theft by steamrolling more than a thousand energy-intensive bitcoin mining machines that had been seized during the raids.
These machines, worth an estimated 5.3 million ringgit (1.1 million euros) were discovered during several police operations on the island of Borneo between February and April.
In total, eight people were arrested for stealing the equivalent of 1.7 million euros of electricity by illegally plugging these very energy-hungry machines into the general network, according to the police.
"Cryptocurrency miners are stealing electricity," said Hakemal Hawari, a senior police official in Miri town, in the northern Malaysian part of Borneo.
"Their actions are dangerous, not only for human life, but also from a material point of view, because they can cause blackouts."
The 1,069 machines used for mining were deposited last week in a parking lot in Miri before being destroyed with a steamroller.
Six of those arrested were sentenced for theft of electricity and jailed for six months.
Bitcoin is based on blocks of encoded and authenticated transactions that add to each other.
These blocks are produced by powerful computers that must solve equations that increase in complexity as the value of money increases, making it more complicated to produce.
However, whether it is for the production of bitcoins or for transactions, exchanges are carried out via "miners", companies or individuals, themselves paid in cryptocurrency and therefore encouraged to produce when its value increases, which requires enormous energy consumption.
© 2021 AFP