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Malaysia’s Crypto Outlaws: Power Theft by Illegal Miners Skyrockets 300% Since 2018
Malaysia’s Crypto Outlaws: Power Theft by Illegal Miners Skyrockets 300% Since 2018
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Malaysia’s energy grid is bleeding megawatts—and crypto miners are holding the jumper cables. Underground mining ops have slashed into power lines with industrial-scale bypasses, turning state subsidies into private BTC farms.
Why pay for electricity when you can steal it? That seems to be the calculus for these rogue operators, who’ve turned power theft into a growth industry. Local authorities report a tripling of incidents since 2018—right around the time Bitcoin decided to ’store value’ by consuming small nations’ worth of energy.
Meanwhile, legitimate miners elsewhere are actually helping stabilize grids with demand-response programs. But in Malaysia? Just another case of decentralized finance meeting centralized larceny.
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