Malaysian police crush thousands of Bitcoin mining machines to crack down on electricity theft

Original title: Crack down on electricity theft crimes! Malaysian police crushed thousands of Bitcoin mining machines

Reference News reported on August 30 that according to the Hong Kong South China Morning Post website, the Malaysian police and the local power company Sarawak Energy took a joint action to seize 1,069 Bitcoin mining machines. Recently, the police placed these mining machines in the parking lot of the police headquarters and crushed them completely with a road roller.

The crackdown came after cryptocurrency miners allegedly stole $2 million worth of electricity from Sarawak Energy, according to Hakemal Hawari, deputy police chief. Video footage of police crushing a bitcoin mining machine went viral on social media.

Screenshot of the video of the police crushing the Bitcoin mining machine. (Hong Kong South China Morning Post website)

Cryptocurrency mining is an energy-intensive process for creating new bitcoins. When people are "mining," it actually means they are trying to solve a complex math problem with a highly specialized computer. Solving this problem is both a way to create new cryptocurrencies and a way to verify new transactions. However, running these machines at full capacity consumes a lot of electricity, which could jeopardize local power supplies. Hawari said that Bitcoin miners' electricity theft has caused three houses to burn down in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia.

Local police conducted six different raids between February and April, destroying a total of about $1.26 million worth of cryptocurrency mining equipment. According to the court order, the police chose to crush rather than sell the cryptocurrency mining equipment, which is very different from the approach taken by other countries.

It is reported that although mining cryptocurrencies is not illegal in Malaysia, there are strict legal restrictions on electricity use. Section 37 of the Malaysian Electricity Supply Act stipulates that arbitrarily tampering with wires will be subject to a fine of up to 100,000 Malaysian ringgit (about 153,000 yuan) and 5 years in prison. According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, Malaysia accounts for 3.44% of the total number of Bitcoin miners in the world, making it one of the top 10 mining farms in the world.