Malaysia: police attack bitcoin miners stealing electricity
Over a thousand Bitcoin mining machines have been destroyed in Malaysia (Illustrative image).
Martin AFP OFFICE / Archivos
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
While cryptocurrency is not banned in Malaysia, securing it, an activity called mining and very energy intensive, is regularly accused of stealing public electricity.
In Borneo, for example, eight people have just been sentenced to several months in prison.
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With our correspondent in Kuala Lumpur,
Gabrielle Maréchaux
It is a larceny which is invited more and more in the pages of various facts of the Malaysian newspapers: the theft of electricity to practice the mining of cryptocurrency.
The latest mischief took place in Borneo.
It was illustrated by a particularly spectacular image: the destruction of more than 1,000 mining machines by a huge steamroller in the parking lot of the local police.
Eight people behind these machines were condemned for stealing the equivalent of 1.7 million euros in electricity.
But if these electronic boxes are extremely energy-intensive, they are also a source of potential nuisance or danger, said the deputy commissioner of
the CNBC media
, citing power cuts and fires.
Similar machines have been found across the country in recent years.
Between January and September 2020 alone, 90 mining facilities were spotted by police.
If China remains the country that practices this securing of bitcoin transactions the most, Malaysia, which has only 31 million inhabitants, is not left out and appears in the top 10 countries where we are devote the most to this activity.
► To read also: Eco from here Eco from elsewhere - Bitcoin: is a monetary revolution underway?
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