The Bitcoin Mining Community Faces a Big Hit in Malaysia as Officials are on the Hunt for Electricity Thieves

A few days ago, Iran had to introduce a ban on crypto mining due to the excessive need for energy for the process. As the number of illegal mining operations kept increasing, it soon caused frequent blackouts and a lack of electricity supply. The government of Iran issues 1000 crypto mining certificates in hopes that it would stop the illicit operations. However, in the end, the local intelligence agencies had to intervene to search for these rigs and close them down.

Something similar took place in Malaysia. In the Penang province, the police force has found about 441 illegal mining machines. It has been reported by the local news outlet The Star that all of this non-bonafide mining equipment was operated on stolen electricity sources. The operation has been seized, and the police have also confiscated all the conductors. It is estimated that these pieces of equipment are valued at about 180K Malaysian Ringgit. 

Illegal Miners are Causing a Lot of Harm to the Local Energy Supply in Malaysia

While the nation of Malaysia is considered a golden place for startups, it has also attracted several bad actors that want to take advantage of the growth opportunities of the nation. The amount of hardware that the police have found is nowhere near in value of the damages that it has caused. In a matter of 2 months, this unregistered mining rig has utilized electricity of about RM 420 thousand.

In US dollars, this amount is about $101,744. The ominous operations were seized by police and the cooperation of several other law enforcement agencies. At present, the police agency is looking for the mastermind behind these illegal operations. At the beginning of the year, the police cracked down on a similar criminal syndicate. The gang had stolen about $2 million worth of electricity from the local power generation company. However, about seven members of the gang were taken into custody. 

A few days ago, MicroStrategy started to sell debt for buying more Bitcoin. As per CEO Michael Saylor, the enterprise was planning to invest about $500 million into the beacon coin. However, in 11 hours, Bitcoin price has plunged once again. As noted by the crypto news aggregator, Trading View Bitcoin has gone down about 5%, moving from $35K to $37K.

The impression is that this decline has been caused by the news of the WazirX money laundering lawsuit. WazirX is a crypto exchange for India owned by Binance; the Indian regulation Directorate of Enforcement is currently investigating the platform for criminal allegations. Meanwhile, Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB) has called for a blanket ban on crypto trading and ownership. In the same vein, China has also kept a strict check on prohibiting digital asset exchanges and mining.