China discovers more miners steal electricity from public institutions

After China banned cryptocurrencies and blocked access to related websites, it now has to deal with miners who they steal electricity from public institutions. It is not enough for them to violate the law that prohibits mining, they went a little further and also stole energy from the government.

Neither institution has been disclosed, but the report from Bloomberg it says they are state-owned companies, government agencies, universities and research institutions, all identified in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces.

In Jiangsu alone, the brave miners used 260,000 kilowatts per hour and about a fifth of the 4,500 IP addresses in the region are from the aforementioned public institutions. The Zhejiang provincial government says 183 mining operations using public resources have been found.

In an official statement on the subject, photos of various mining rigs with various graphics cards were shown. The equipment belonged to the public institutions themselves and it is not known whether the platforms and PCs will suffer the same fate as the ASIC platforms seized in Malaysia.

“Rapid mining hardware upgrades and fierce competition in computing power have resulted in massive energy use, which is contrary to the province’s overall carbon offset and goals,” the government statement said.

China continues with its plan to end cryptocurrency mining, in addition to the use of its own virtual currencies in the country. In September, the Central Bank of China banned each and every cryptocurrency-related transaction. Last month, electronics factories had to stop production due to a lack of power.

Those responsible for this act will have to answer for some crimes, such as the illegal use of public resources, mining itself and the theft of electricity.