Malaysian police destroy Bitcoin computers

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So-called Bitcoin farmers use specialized computers, the "mining rigs"

Photo: ALESSANDRO BIANCHI / REUTERS

The video of the use of an unusual scrapping operation is currently being shared virally on social media.

It shows a parking lot filled with hundreds of small computers.

Then a road roller drives over it and crushes the devices into a pulp of electronic waste.

The background is a high-profile campaign in Malaysia against electricity theft, as reported by CNBC, among others. The police had confiscated the devices from several illegal Bitcoin farms. The accusation: The operators are said to have stolen the electricity with which the computers were operated. In addition to the damage amounting to the equivalent of around 1.7 million euros, the devices also overloaded the power grid, resulting in power outages. In order to deter copycats, the authorities decided on the drastic destruction action. The computers alone are said to have been worth over a million euros.

In the past few years, such illegal crypto farms have been noticed again and again.

Pseudo-currencies like Bitcoin are kept going with the help of complex calculations.

Those who make their computers available will be rewarded with rewards in Bitcoin or other crypto currencies.

The criminals' imagination knows few boundaries: In the Ukraine, for example, an illegal "farm" with 3800 game consoles (Playstation 4) was recently excavated, which were also operated with stolen electricity.

Contrary to initial assumptions, however, no cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum was mined here.

The game consoles are said to have been used instead, according to media reports, to cultivate accounts for the computer game FIFA 21, which the operators then resold on the black market.

tmk