Authorities in Malaysia have decided to destroy over $1.2 million worth of BTC mining rigs after they were impounded for operating illegally. It is not yet clear why the authorities outright destroyed these miners instead of trying to reap some value. However, they can still be sold for scrap.
In a video posted on July 16, 2021, from the local news outlet DayakDaily, authorities in the city of Miri on the Borneo island and the Sarawak Energy firm arranged for a steamroller to crush at least 1,069 Bitcoin miners. These rigs were allegedly confiscated from the residents of Malaysia trying to illegally mine the crypto using stolen electricity between February and April.
Based on a July 16 report from Malatsiaon newspaper The Star, the destruction of these mining machines, worth about $1.26 million, happened at the Miri district police headquarters. Authorities said that three houses in the area had been demolished in 2021 due to illegal Bitcoin mining, while the Sarawak Energy firm lost around $2 million from the operations.
It is not yet clear why authorities in Malaysia outright destroyed the miners instead of selling them. Officials from Turkey, Iran, and other nations where mining is prohibited or restricted have been conducting continuous raids on the unauthorized crypto mining operations for some time, mostly resulting in arrests, seizures, and fines on the rigs.
Nonetheless, there are few if any reports of the mining machines getting crushed by a steamroller or destroyed using other thorough methods. Chinese authorities allegedly auctioned over 2,000 rigs in February that were seized for similar reasons.
According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance estimates, Malaysia contributed 3.44% to BTC’s total monthly hashrate as of April 2021. The nation has a yearly energy consumption of over 147 terawatt-hours.
