As competition among mining companies becomes increasingly fierce, how to reduce mining costs has become the most important issue for mining companies. Where miners obtain cheap energy, and even theft of electricity, has become one of the common speculations among the public. Many news reports attribute power theft to mining. Whether this is true, or whether it is just a statement made by government departments, may still be open to question.

Malaysian miners stole electricity worth over US$700 million

Illegal crypto miners in Malaysia have stolen a total of $723 million worth of electricity since 2018, the Malay Mail reported.

Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir, Deputy Minister of Energy Transformation of Malaysia, revealed this outrageous data at an event. A total of 2,022 related equipment worth approximately US$467,000 were destroyed and seized during the event, including Bitcoin mining machines and electrical equipment.

Nasir said these illegal mining operations not only caused huge losses to Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Malaysia’s state-owned electricity operator, but also affected local residents.

He noted:

Power thieves often don't register with the relevant authorities and find ways to bypass meters or steal electricity from power lines. However, power companies have a number of ways to detect unusual energy consumption in an area.

Malaysia has destroyed thousands of mining machines

Malaysian officials have been cracking down on illegal mining rigs since August 2019, seizing and destroying more than 2,000 devices in a 2022 operation. Nasir said the destruction process was conducted in accordance with the country's criminal procedure code.

He emphasized that cracking down on illegal crypto miners and increasing Malaysia’s renewable energy sources have been two of his ministry’s priorities.

According to a note from Universiti Teknologi MARA in December 2022, mining cryptocurrency is not illegal in the country, but stealing electricity for mining is.

(Mining News｜Malaysian police ransacked thousands of mining machines, Chinese miners settled in the United States and Kazakhstan)

Has electricity theft become synonymous with miners?

As competition among mining companies becomes increasingly fierce, how to reduce mining costs has become the most important issue for mining companies. Where miners obtain cheap energy, and even theft of electricity, has become one of the common speculations among the public.

So is there really such large-scale electricity theft? If Nasir said that "power companies are fully capable of detecting abnormal power supply," how could illegal miners steal up to $700 million in power and then find out later?

Malaysian readers of Chain News said:

It is true that there are many "stealing electricity" for mining, but the amount is unclear. I personally feel that a large part of electricity theft comes from thieves shouting to catch thieves. If all electricity theft is put into a relatively "controversial" cryptocurrency, they will be more Easy to explain.

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