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William Seger

(10,742 posts)
Mon Jul 12, 2021, 06:46 PM Jul 2021

Illegal Crypto Mining Farm With Almost 5,000 Computers Busted in Ukraine

Source: InterestingEngineering.com

Last week, the Ukraine police unit exposed a massive underground crypto mining farm in the city of Vinnytsia, three hours from the capital city of Kyiv. The police have begun criminal proceedings against the operators of the farm, who hail from Kyiv and Vinnytsia, for unauthorized use of water, electricity, and thermal energy.

The operations were located in the former warehouse of the JSC Vinnytsiaoblenerho, a Ukrainian company engaged in power transmission and distribution. During the raid, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) seized 3,800 PlayStation gaming consoles, over 500 graphic cards, 50 processors, notebooks, phones, and flash drives used during the operations.

As per the University of Cambridge's analysis, globally bitcoin mining consumes 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity every year. This is more than the electricity consumption of entire countries like Argentina or the Netherlands. Preliminary estimates suggest that the Vinnytsia operation was drawing power in the range of 5-7 million Ukrainian hryvnia (US$ 186,000 - 259,300) per month.

To hide this consumption from the authorities, they were using electricity meters that did not show the real consumption. The investigators are now searching whether officials from JSC Vinnytsiaoblenerho were also involved in the operations.

Read more: https://interestingengineering.com/illegal-crypto-mining-farm-with-5000-computers-and-3800-playstations-busted-in-ukraine

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Hugh_Lebowski

(33,643 posts)
5. That's the thing, they were cheating on the electric bills
Mon Jul 12, 2021, 07:23 PM
Jul 2021

That is, I'd imagine, the primary crime in play here.

Mr. Evil

(2,746 posts)
6. A techie friend of mine
Mon Jul 12, 2021, 07:41 PM
Jul 2021

tried to explain the lure and subsequent futility of bitcoin mining. By the time you find one you've consumed as much or more electricity than what the discovered bitcoin is worth. The only way to do it is if you own enough solar panels or other renewable energy to maybe recoup your expenses upon discovery.

After his description I asked him, "so, basically it's like a digital easter egg hunt." He replied, "yes."

This waste of energy is happening every day all over the world.

getagrip_already

(14,236 posts)
10. that's not crypto mining....
Mon Jul 12, 2021, 08:59 PM
Jul 2021

Crypto mining is maintenance and development of the blockchain ledger. It's how cyber currency is born and traced, but you don't get bitcoins by mining. It is so compute intensive it is farmed out to freelancers who can throw a lot of gpu cycles at it.

What you are describing is more busting than mining. You are trying to randomly generate a valid cyber currency cypher. Very hard to do, and not really worth anyones time.



William Seger

(10,742 posts)
14. I don't think that's quite right
Tue Jul 13, 2021, 12:40 AM
Jul 2021

I believe you're referring to transaction fees, but bitcoin mining is crypto mining, and it includes maintaining the ledger and verifying new transaction blocks, hoping to be the first such verifier to guess a number that satisfies a hashing requirement for the block. That block can then be added to the blockchain, and the first verifier who does that is rewarded in bitcoins. The reward started at 50 bitcoins, but it gets cut in half every 210,000 blocks (which happens about every 4 years), and it's currently 6.25 bitcoins. Transaction fees are an add-on to the original system to provide incentive to mine even though claiming block rewards is very difficult.

hunter

(38,264 posts)
16. The energy costs of cryptocurrency transactions are several thousand times that of ordinary dollars.
Tue Jul 13, 2021, 08:18 AM
Jul 2021

For this reason alone cryptocurrencies are bullshit.

madville

(7,397 posts)
8. Good, Bitcoin and some other crypto mining are a huge waste of resources
Mon Jul 12, 2021, 08:27 PM
Jul 2021

And in places like China that are using coal, it’s also adding greatly to an already looming environmental crisis.

Response to William Seger (Original post)

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