Ukrainian authorities have confiscated more than 5,000 game consoles, including 3,800 PS4 consoles, in an operation against cryptocurrency mining.
All the devices were located in a cryptocurrency farm in the Vinnytsia province. Miners had occupied a laundry room at the city’s local electricity company, located southwest of Kiev, which was illegally connected to the power grid.
“Entire blocks of Vinnytsia could have been without electricity,” said the Security Service of Ukraine, SSU.
Illegal mining hit
In addition to the 3,800 PlayStation 4 consoles, they also seized 500 GPUs, 50 CPUs, documents, notebooks, phones, and flash drives.
Perhaps workers from the electric company Vinnytsiaoblenergo participate.
Authorities consider that the company was able to lose up to $250,000 per month in electricity consumption for cryptocurrency mining.
This is not the first time this has happened in Ukraine. At the beginning of July, Refers to the Nasdaq portal, SSU closed a smaller farm in the Chernihiv region, with 150 application-specific ASICs.
Although the Ukrainian government is about to issue its first cryptocurrency regulation, and welcomes the possibility of issuing a digital currency, it is avoiding the illegal consumption of electricity for farms.
Vinnytsia Oblast consists of 1.5 million inhabitants, a large part of which depends on the energy services of Venezia Oblast. Kiev, the country’s capital, also receives electricity from the company.
According to the Kyiv Post, Vinnytsiaoblenergo denied any involvement in the crypto farm. He noted that “the equipment used to mine cryptocurrency has never been operated in our company’s owned facilities.”
He also said that he had not found any evidence of electrical theft and that the findings of the Special Security Unit “do not correspond to reality.”
Excessive energy consumption in crypto farms
The mining farm houses several computers dedicated to mining cryptocurrency. To work they need a lot of energy and air conditioning to prevent them from overheating.
in the United States, This month they denounced Lake North New York is heating up due to bitcoin mining. A gas-fired power plant, used for this purpose, pollutes the air and heats the Seneca Lake.
“It’s so warm that you feel like you’re in a hot tub,” said Abby Boddington, a woman who lives in the area, according to NBC.
The plant on the shores of Seneca Lake is owned by Atlas Holdings, a private equity firm. It is operated by Greenidge Generation LLC. According to NBC, it has increased its production of electrical energy in the past year and a half, using it to mine bitcoin.
“In Greenedge, computers are working 24/7, burning an astonishing amount of real energy and producing real pollution, while collecting virtual currencies,” NBC says.
