Chinese household caught stealing electricity to power its home bitcoin mining operation
Illegally connected cables were running small room of equipment used to earn more of the cryptocurrency
A household in southern China has been caught stealing electricity to power a bitcoin ‘mining’ operation, in the latest example of the country’s appetite for cryptocurrency.
China Southern Power Grid Company said on Wednesday it had uncovered electricity theft at a home in the province of Guangdong that was running power-intensive mining equipment.
It was discovered when local grid workers from the company’s Meizhou municipal branch conducted routine inspections of power cables and found some that were connected illegally, the company said in a post on Weibo, China’s Twitter.
The cables, hidden in an alley in the county of Fengshun, linked to a household on an upstairs floor.
Mining of bitcoin, the world’s best-known cryptocurrency, is a means by which anyone with suitable hardware and internet access can earn bitcoin by being the first to solve a puzzle and place the next block in the chain – the process by which transactions are verified.