back to article Power spike leads Chinese police to 600-machine mining rig

Chinese media is reporting the seizure of 600 Bitcoin miners in the northern municipality of Tianjin, on the grounds of electricity theft. Coin mining is a popular activity in China, but like so many places, those operating big mining rigs find the rivers of gold dammed by high electricity prices. The Digiconomist Bitcoin …

  1. pentiumofborg

    Maybe marijuana growers will mine instead?

    A local burned down because the disused upper floor had a power supply (badly) hacked to grow weed, how long will before drug growers in the UK do the same for mining?

    1. SomeRandomFaggot

      Re: Maybe marijuana growers will mine instead?

      They won't switch; you can't smoke bitcoin.

      And can you imagine the chaos if they do?

      The price of weed will skyrocket as the remaining supply gets bought up by the privileged few, who will keep it for themselves or sell it to the super rich at an extortionately high price. Web designers, architects, videographers, reiki therapists, and ruby developers will no longer be able to concentrate at work. Unemployment will skyrocket as companies outsource their remaining workloads to India. The graphics industry will collapse overnight leading to a shortage of critical resources for the gaming, software, and media industries - wiping billions off the stock exchange and leading to thousands of suicides and a massive increase in homelessness.

      There will be a spike in violent crime as previously subdued hippies turn to methamfetamine and cocaine - many will find themselves forming dangerous gangs, leading to violent running street battles where once there were pavement artists. The quest for weed will likely lead to the commissioning of narcosubs which will be used by the newly established hippie knife gangs to smuggle weed from Spain and Amsterdam, leading to a rise in international organised crime and the establishment of a European drug cartel. The Royal Navy will have to be drafted in to hunt and destroy the narcosubs, allowing the the narcosubs to evade capture almost indefinitely and leading to national embarrassment as the government is finally forced to admit that the type 42 is so loud it can be heard from space and they didn't budget for anything else. After this international humiliation and following brexit, the UK will find itself isolated on the world stage and will be forced to increasingly rely on Chinese outsourcing for all of it's infrastructure needs, eventually outsourcing the national grid itself. The Chinese will then shut down all the bitcoin miners, leaving the playing field once again free for home grown weed suppliers, and leading to a declaration of war by the hippie cartel who see the possibility of home grown weed as a threat to their now established drug empire

      Having the combined marketing power of Greenpeace and WWF as well as hippie agents in critical government positions, the hippies lobby successfully for a reversal of the outsourcing contract and the reinstatement of the bitcoin farms. As part of the push back, they also introduce electricity fee waivers for bitcoin miners and find synergy with their own "clean power" movement to push the UK towards establishing a 100% renewable bitcoin mining industry. Vast swathes of countryside from Land's End to John O'Groats are turned over to wind turbines as the imperative becomes to build them as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Masssive datacenters will be built where previously there were thriving town centres as the English countryside will be transformed into a forest of giant white metal trees.

      With the hippies now fully engaged in their new found drug fuelled prosperity there are no protesters and no NGOs to oppose questionable government initiatives. With this critical check and balance lost local councils, acting unopposed, do what they do best. Before long the UK has dropped below China on the global human rights index, with jail sentences being handed out on the spot for littering and looking at council officials the wrong way. Being a gypsy is made illegal - so is home schooling, self employment, and owning books that may contain material that could be detrimental to the unity of society. All phones have mandatory monitoring software installed to check for evidence of failure to recycle bottles. Encryption is made illegal and anyone using a security certificate for their web site is sentenced to death by lion.

      Most English people will not notice any of this, and will continue to quietly despise themselves as well as all life - believing as normal that any punishment exacted upon someone else must be well deserved.

      1. PM from Hell
        Flame

        Re: Maybe marijuana growers will mine instead?

        I'll have two of whatever you are smoking

        1. Mark 85

          Re: Maybe marijuana growers will mine instead?

          Sign me up for a couple also. My creative brain cells could use the boost.

      2. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Maybe marijuana growers will mine instead?

        @SomeRandomFaggot

        Phew! That's some post. Been indulging have we?

    2. TrumpSlurp the Troll
      Trollface

      Re: Maybe marijuana growers will mine instead?

      Win win, Shirley?

      Light for photosynthesis from vast LED arrays, waste heat from the mining rigs to maintain a greenhouse temperature. Launder the proceeds through Bitcoin (or other more cost effective digital currency) and the drug money is lost in the mining noise.

  2. Blockchain commentard

    Reckon they'd be allowed to pay their fine in Bitcoins?

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Come on, this is not the Russian election.

      For those who do not know - apparently nearly 60% of all contributions to the Navalny campaign were paid in BitCoin.

      Give or take two years and it is coming here. At this point I would like to see how the Election commission will successfully enforce the "no foreign funds" limitation.

      1. Rob D.

        For those who don't know ... apparently

        In the UK, Bitcoin could in theory be used now to contribute to a political party - whether that is as a legally declared means of funding or an illegal way of hiding funding is irrelevant. Not knowing the source means not being permitted to accept the donation; an anonymous crypto donation would have to be returned - an agreed donation properly accounted for would be OK. (No-one's offering though probably because it's a drop in the ocean and too much trouble right now - Libertarian Party might but they are tiny; Green party might have flirted with it some time ago but the energy costs would kill that as a proposition now.)

        Navalny's campaign started to accept Bitcoin funding late 2016 with the state bearing down on their options for running a campaign even though ruled ineligible for the ballot. The published address was https://blockchain.info/address/3QzYvaRFY6bakFBW4YBRrzmwzTnfZcaA6E though when/how the Bitcoins were spent, by whom and for what monetary value might be less clear. 60% lacks weight without reference.

        Even Navalny joked about accepting payment in Bitcoin like a drug dealer.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "60% of all contributions to the Navalny campaign were paid in BitCoin."

        Being on the "wrong" side of Putin could be quite dangerous... no surprise you may want not to be tracked.

      3. Alistair
        Windows

        @VRH

        At this point I would like to see how the Election commission will successfully enforce the "no foreign funds" limitation.

        Doesn't seem likely they've been doing bugger all good on that front under the *current* circumstances, don't imagine it will get any better anywhere.

  3. Nimby
    Flame

    Switch to infra-red ... O M G!

    I would love to see a FLIR image of that place!

    But it also begs the question: How many people are getting away with that same hack right now simply because they weren't greedily pushing it to stupid proportions?

  4. Claptrap314 Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Didn't China already ban coin?

    Didn't I read about it here?

  5. Mahhn

    Not Chen!

    Oh no not Chen, he made great swords. (there is only one Chen in china right?)

    1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

      Re: Not Chen!

      @Mahhn

      Oh no not Chen, he made great swords. (there is only one Chen in china right?)

      Hu me?

  6. VeganVegan
    Flame

    Color me astonished!

    Almost a megawatt-hour per transaction?!!!

    Here I am, switching to LEDs and adopting other power-saving measures, just to save a few kilowatt-hours per year...

    Bitcoin is an ecological disaster in addition to all the other bad things they say about it.

    Icon is most appropriate ——>

    1. Halfmad

      Re: Color me astonished!

      I setup a mining PC in our kitchen a couple of years ago to mine Bitcoin/litecoin over Christmas as we'd previously had extreme weather which froze our kitchen carpet (not fun in the morning!).

      The mining PC prevented that. I removed it when things got warmer though. Got to love AMD (7950s) cards.

  7. Speltier

    Bad Location or Failed Business Plan

    The *coin miners that get away are either located near massive declining aluminum, cement, and steel fabrication facilities where the power losses are not noticeable, or properly reimburse local officials to appreciate the wealth creation of *coin mining. The latter is just a cost of doing business just like other valuable activities like selling designer drugs to the OECD countries.

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