Cryptomining Causes Tehran Power Outages; German Man Refuses to give $60M Bitcoin Password to Police
takyon writes:
Everyone already knows that crypto miners are causing a shortage of the newest graphics cards on top of the preexisting shortages, but now large scale mining farms are causing power outages. In Iran, authorities investigated the cause of power outages and found out the root cause was GPU mining farms taking huge amounts of power.
These aren't just some average mining farms run by a miner, these are full industrial level operations that have moved from China to Iran. In Iran, power is produced at a cost of 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour and sold at over 10 times that to the public, but the miners are able to get it for 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. Not even China can match those prices, so miners have moved their operations to Tehran because it's the most cost-effective.
After investigations, Iranian authorities concluded that there are 14 huge crypto mining operations in Iran that consumed 300 megawatts, but at full capacity could consume up to 450 megawatts. For reference, that much power can provide for a city with a population of 100,000 people. All of this makes Iran the 6th most popular destination for crypto mining in the world.
Also at Radio Free Europe, Washington Post, and Business Insider.
A German man is keeping $60 million in bitcoin from police by never revealing his passwordAn Anonymous Coward writes:
The wonderful thing about bitcoin is many of its apparent benefits, like the ability to be anonymously owned and securely transferred, are also the things that often create situations like this: police in Germany have seized more than 50 million ($60 million) in bitcoin, but they can't access any of it because, as Reuters reports, the person they took it from won't tell them his password.
The man in question was sentenced and has served his time in jail for covertly installing bitcoin mining software on people's computers, but throughout the entire process, he never shared a peep about how German authorities should get in. "We asked him but he didn't say" is the explanation Reuters was offered by a prosecutor. It presents a big, and probably obvious, question: can you really seize something, particularly money, that you can't access or use?
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