A Bitcoin miner in China is being imprisoned for stealing power from trains

in bitcoin •  6 years ago 

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A Bitcoin miner from the Shanxi province in China is being jailed after to admitting to the theft of 104,000 yuan or approximately $15,000 worth of electricity from this train network.

Xu Xinghua tapped directly into the Datong train network's power grid to cut cost on his mining operation. He was apparently running at least 50 mining rigs and 3 electric fans for 24 hours a day between November and December 2017.

On April 2018, he had stolen over $15,000 worth of electricity and mined 3.2 Bitcoin. In April the price of this Bitcoin was worth about $19,000. However, taking into consideration the increase in Bitcoin mining difficulty despite the price continuing to decrease, it's hard to imagine that this was worth it to him. The mining difficulty has continued to increase in the last 6 months even with the price declining.

Mr. Xinghua will now spend the next 3.5 years behind bars for this and pay at least $14,500 dollars and take back all of his mining hardware.

Apparently his motivation to mine Bitcoin in the first place was the price increasing so quickly back in November and December and he was trying to take advantage of the cheap electricity prices in China at the time, and once the Chinese government ruled mining to be illegal, he must have felt that he had already made a large investment in his mining equipment.

Still, even after all this it doesn't seem like it was worth it? What do you think the price of Bitcoin will be by December 2018?

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great blog good information provided something new i got from your blog so thank you for sharing and keep posting :))

Not all heroes wear capes!

It is not a onion news right!

No, it's hard to believe, but I heard about this from some reputable sources.

When mining is life lol!

hi @the4thmusketeer

How have you been doing? Since I didn't hear from you, I decided to check your account to see if you're still being active on Steemit.

Im glad to see tht you're still around. Obviously upvoted :)

ps. I wanted to ask you a question. You mind telling me what's your view on latest HF20 introduced on steemit? Did it affect you in any way?

Obviously upvoted.
Yours, Piotr

Hi crypto piotr, I thought I replied to your last message, but it's possible it got lost in the mix. I'm glad to see that you're still around here as well.

HF 20 hasn't impacted me too much other than the couple days where most people were affected. The most interesting thing that looks like it's going to happen to Steem in the future is the introduction of RC delegations and new apps being built on Steem. If you're looking for a good description of the changes that have happened, then look at themarkymark and therealwolf, they've been covering the subject over the last few weeks.

Thank you for being so responsive @the4thmusketeer
and sorry for such a late reply. just realized that I've missed your comment

yours
Piotr

Oh boy! I doubt if he earns a lot from that mining. The consequences are heavier than his earnings for sure... imprisonment and payment $14,500 dollars.

When cryptocurrency mining is illegal, it is not worth it to mine your own bitcoin. He will not only lose 3.5 years of his life, he will also lose $14,500.

As for the price of bitcoin in December 2018, an average of $10K looks reasonable.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

He was trying to be smart but he wasn't smart enough ;)
As for the price of BTC, will cross at least two RLs.

great news update its a important news thanks for updating us :))

hahhahaahah thats incredible

Bitcoin mining is not profitable nowadays, Good post , Anything illegal will cost you one day.

Hahahaha lol