Bitcoin Forum

Chinese authorities have seized nearly 7000 crypto mining machines that are illegally consuming electric power, really hope this won't affect bitcoin in any way? And why are people doing this? Prove of staking is a better option and no one will ever know you are mining anything, i am not saying POW miners are bad but illegally? Come on! It's not worth taking such risk when they know they can be caught, they can earn same profits from Staking

Full news is right here
https://cointelegraph.com/news/chinese-authorities-confiscate-nearly-7-000-crypto-mining-machines

From what I understand by the article I can say that the illegal part of the process wasn't the mining (even tho how china approaches to mining is still a debate) but the illegal electric part.

If you don't get signed up for electricity and don't pay for it, of course you will get all your machines confiscated because government has to get a payment for the electricity that you are using. And we are talking about 7000 machines here, I don't know how many of them were running but if even half of that was using electricity without paying anything to the government I am sorry to say this but they deserved to lose their machines. There are many many places that are mining operations so just one less place won't affect bitcoin that badly, there is nothing to worry about there.

There is nothing illegal about mining bitcoin, these confiscated miners are managed by criminals who use electricity illegally, really if they can't pay for electricity why buying asic miners? You have a point that staking coins would have been better, there will be no need for electricity

If you are using an illegal electric connection (aka stealing electricity) then government has every right to punish you. Here is why Chinese police confiscated the mining equipment.

Old new, it's always like that in China when it comes to crypto.
The crypto drama in there is just endless.

Now, it will affect because it seems to be a negative news which do happens mostly. AFAIK in China you are required to apply for licenses but CMIIW.
It's better option for altcoins but for bitcoin PoW is much better and preferred.

There is no problem in seizing if the Authorities found out that they are illegally using power, of course they have the rights to seize it. They are earning big without much spending on consumption? Should really arrest it. The news will spread and typically creates a fud on bitcoin. It's not btc fault but becoming affected due to misuse of these kind of people.

in an industry where electricity literally converts into $$$ (btc mining), power cost is king.   
You can pick up old hardware for literally free from so many places if you just come get it off their hands most the time haha
so if you can subsidize your power (or get it for free LEGALLY somehow like a utilities included contract or something), you can really have a good situation
but if you do it ILLEGALLY, well, then your screwed. they make too much noise to not be noticed EVENTUALLY :P

Mining using illegal resources is like a time bomb, just waiting to be raided by the authority. But, losing 7000 machines is nothing though the difficulty will adjust after 2006 blocks and everything will be fine as if these machines are not exist.

Don't really think this news will necessarily trigger fud among people anyway.

If you are doing all your mining stuff legally then I don't see any problem with it. You are not facing any risk of getting your mining stuff confiscated. But if you are mining while cheating or even stealing electricity then expect the government to run after you and confiscate your stuff. That is just as simple as that.

In terms of staking, I am in favor of it compared to mining.

This regulation applies in any country and if you carry out illegal actions, in this case the use of electricity illegally, the use without paying. So, whatever business you do, if you do it like that or other illegal actions, then you have violated the law and the risk is your business will be stopped, the assets will be confiscated in lieu of state losses.

You don't even need to steal electricity or use it illegally for them to confiscate and ban your mining business, it is as easy as not complying with the papers needed for your business to operate that will trigger them to have reason to confiscate and to stop you. Remember, government have a deeper reason why some instances like this is happening, they don't want cryptocurrency right from the start so it will be easy for them to pass regulation that when we just fail to comply even with simple terms then we are getting compromised.

wow, this will definitely affect Bitcoin's supply and its price in the near future. Actually, mining is legal for the crypto market in China but it seems that the owner of this business did not explicitly declare its form and led to the incident as it is now.
Staking is one of the most profitable investments right now, but staking is happening at quite a few alts with an unstable price. So if the market is down, we do Staking, it will be much risky than making PoW.

Sensationalist reporting yet again.

As others have said it's because of the fact that they're illegally consuming electricity that they have been seized - not because mining is intrinsically illegal per se.

And even though China has been hostile on miners overall I doubt that if you were mining on an individual basis there would be any enforceability of any restrictions put on miners. Of course big corporations have all moved overseas because regulation for them is a lot tighter.

It is really irritating to see these clickbait articles. The Chinese authorities arrested a group of miners for power theft and the OP tweaked the title to give an impression that they got arrested for mining coins. I have seen dozens of threads claiming that the Chinese authorities are going to launch a crackdown on Bitcoin mining. I am seeing such threads ever since I joined this forum three years back. And till now, none of these threats have got realized.

People around me still mine coins using free electricity, which is illegal and they have been doing this for more than a year now, in my own country security and laws are not taken very serious so they can get away with this, i prefer POS coins because they don't require any skill

It's just a matter of miners' behavior not about POW or POS. Both are freely chosen by anyone. Incidentally the miners utilize illegal electricity which certainly gives them more profit because they do not need to pay their electricity bills. Every country will do the same for these illegal miners.
After all, these miners must have had a good calculation where they were prepared to risk being caught. This risk is proportional to the results they get rather than having to stake. I think so.

I know that the Chinese Government said that it's blockchain and not Cryptocurrencies but it seems they are going out of their way to cripple the existing Cryptocurrency infrastructure, it might just be a way to clear away all competition so that when their own coin launches, it would be just them exclusively in their country but one thing they fail to see is that if they are claiming that it's just Blockchain and not Cryptocurrencies, then launching their own Cryptocurrency makes absolutely no sense so I tend to believe that this is just an attempt to clear all competition. This is just an example of Governments being Governments, they claim to want decentralisation but they still want to control the power.

Mining with government Generated power is bad and it is not the right thing to. I believe this news should even influence bitcoin positively as the number of bitcoin to mine will reduce. I hope and believe other miner will learn lessons from this and do the right things.

Word to note: "illegally". The miners probably stole energy to mine Bitcoin? Well, it is justice if that was what really happened, if not, what specifically did they do wrong? Is paying for electricity & using it, now illegal in the country?

Proof of stake could get you into trouble in the future too when there is policy change against buying coins to stake. Look at how centralized staking platforms are springing up to centralize the whole thing like they are currently doing with trading.
I believe something better will replace them in the future

I do not understand why it is illegal to do this when the activity can be carried out legally.This confiscation of course will not appear in any way on the price of bitcoin, but will make all illegal immigrants be more careful.

because bitcoin mining takes up a lot of electrical energy. the person must have done an illegal way to avoid the cost of large electricity bills and the government would have imposed sanctions if it was known because it would harm the state electricity company.

If you had a job or a place that you could use for free energy mining for a while, wouldn't you be tempted to try some minining? And Since you probably won't get caught right away, it probably gives you a feeling of false security and you would get greedy with the hardware until you got caught.

That is also one way to stop the operation of your crypto mining. But it is very possible that some crypto miners, especially those small-time ones who only have a few rigs and do not operate mining farms, are hiding their operation from the government. They can easily conceal their rising electric consumption with other legal and registered business operations. But once they are caught, they don't have any defense to that.

The key word is "illegally consuming electric power", isn't it enough reason for Chinese Authorities to confiscate their illegal doings.
Oh, wait, if it's done legally will its result be the opposite? Since Chinese pretty much banning everything related to crypto it seems. Well, it's their fault for stealing electricity and it just happened that it's not their lucky day when the inpsection was being held in their region.

How can you even compare free electricity mining and POS coins? First you have to acquire enough coins and that's not cheap if you are going to make a living, and even then value of those can just go down before you sell them and you couldn't even cover the original cost.

This is why China has such high hashrate and the rest of us can never compete. They pretty much ruin crypto for the rest of us. They even stealing electricity so it is free for them. How can a legit businessman/woman compete with that? This will affect bitcoin for the good, why do you hope it won't affect bitcoin. Fewer miners are better. People are doing this for the money you already know this. Stealing power = massive profits.
They have basically found a way to convert power directly into currency. No one cares if you stealing power to stake. You only need one device to stake. It is when you have an entire factory stealing electricity.

what are they going to do with those mining devices, its best for them to ask to pay the bills probably calculate how much they have consumed ans ask for electricity bill. they can;t sell those mining devices anyway. unless they are going to reuse those mining devices and mine for their own.

but how are they connecting their cables to tap electricity without getting caught the first day of operation?  chinese electricity is cheap actually, these miners can definitely afford to pay.

Well the Chinese people are known to be thrifty persons and they would save a lot of money as they can even through illegal means that's why they are doing this. Their operation like I said is illegal and these types of procedure where they confiscate their mining hardware is just sop and they will let the courts decide their punishment and whether or not they can reclaim the mining equipment after. I just hope that they make this as a lesson for people just to pay the right amount of bills rather than make their operation go underground since they are really facing the government here which we all know they barely lose.

I don't think they have right to confiscate the mining equipment, maybe there is a problem with article, but if they want maybe can make a law and who consume a lot of power to pay more, i don't know but is illegal to confiscate equipment buyed with own money.

Well if they expect to steal electricity and mine for profit, they had it coming to them sorry. They should respect the law of the land and not be stealing energy that should be used for others who pay for it. I don't like this type of greed at all and this can give Bitcoin and Crypto a really bad name. I hate it when people want to make easy money through fraud and theft, it annoys me, because I and others work so hard just to make ends meet and do the right thing by our jurisdiction. So I don't feel sorry if they lost their mining equipment as they should think hard about their actions and the repercussions of those stupid actions. I really want them to learn though from the mistakes they made and hopefully they become better people and if they ever get to work again, work with honor and do things properly next time.

The Chinese really do have strict regulations about cryptocurrencies as they want to control almost everything in their country. Plus, if it's illegal source of power, the culprits must really be put by the law. Furthermore, the issue of regulation even in miming industry has been debated by many and if it must be taxed or monitored by the government. Even in our country, there is no clear process about it nor a permit to operate, not that it is needed or required by the law. Until there's no clear set of rules, the government must not deal with the crypto industry in my opinion.

They are confiscating mining machines simply because they are using electric power illegally and they are even using more power than regular consumer. It's not surprising if they will confiscate mining machines. As long as your doing is authorized, there is nothing to worry about it. Eventhough news came from China. I don't think it can affect btc. As you can see we are already at bear market and price has been tested this month but didn't go to $5k floor as others predicted and back to $7k.

if a regulation has been made stating crypto mining is prohibited it is like an illegal business. of course, the confiscation of equipment will be carried out. but I agree with your suggestion more. imposing additional tariffs for people who use more electricity will be more equitable. because mining is not an act that harms others.

Yes it's a long-running TV series for cryptocurrencies in China, and since 2017 China has banned cryptocurrency mining. But that situation never stops, because in China the cost of mining is very cheap and so many people have taken advantage of it. I wouldn't be surprised if any mining plant was confiscated by the government because it always happened, I just hope that it will impact the price of Bitcoin and help it go up in the future

The Chinese government still has a bad view of the cryptocurrency market because of concerns about bitcoin disrupting financial markets and they dislike currencies that they cannot manage. Besides, mining electricity costs a lot of electricity, making it a waste of national resources.
I think if anyone wants to mine cryptocurrency he should go to a country that allows it. Illegal cryptocurrency mining is wrong and no government likes it.

I think that wherever we live, we should obey the laws of that place. Illegal mining is a misconduct and it should pay the price, and I support China's confiscation of those mining machines. If anyone wants to mine cryptocurrencies they should get permission from the government and pay a fee to operate.
Besides, the number of 7000 mining machines is quite small, I think it will not be able to affect the cryptocurrency market.

It will surely affect the mining society but as what they did, I know that they are already prepared to it as mining illegally is not a good option also.
It is like earning a money by stealing electricity without paying a bucks to the owner, I hope they learned from it so it will not happen again.

And the best area to put mining gigs are in the country in which electricity is very affordable so you don't need to steal an electricity instead you will earn a good profit while paying the electricity that you have used.

China are not against with the mining process of bitcoin but they are against with the process that the persons behind thaa mining because of stealing electricity on the nearby village meaning they are doing mining for free of charge in electricity which is very illegal wherever you are.

Maybe this incident will gather some speculative ideas and will be used by FUD makers. Indeed, those things will not really into focus with mining itself because the ones involved was having serious factors towards the mining operation. If they would wanted to do fair operation with the consent of the government, paying electricity in legal conditions should always be complied and not in an illegal initiations.

unbelievable with China project mining where they have big mining company in their country where can earn much bitcoin every time, after China banned bitcoin many mining project company have been failed because China have stop running for every bitcoin mining company in their country right now.

Any government will confiscate mining equipment if the electricity used is stolen electricity. I think the Chinese Government is acting appropriately and rightfully so because it is to protect other industries and China has never banned crypto mining activities.

China crack downing on cryptocurrency is not a new thing. What is interesting is that cryptocurrency has not been affected by such act of China. And Chinese authorities are realizing the importance of cryptocurrency as a result. So I think they are internally discussing the ways to regulate cryptocurrency. Sooner or later, they will accept cryptocurrency.

They are realizing the potential benefits of this system, though the topic from this thread is not about chasing the mining itself but the illegality
of consuming electricity without paying for it. it's just dragging the name of mining since it's  a good topic to read and with a lots of interested
people around this industry many will catch up some attentions and gain traffics.

What I caught from the article was the number of greedy people who violated state rules, I think it's legitimate because it's clear they are illegal. But if it has an impact on the miners who follow the rules, I think we also have to take action because it is detrimental, such as the price of bitcoin falling because of irresponsible parties, I think we all have to play honestly and don't need to overdo it in any case and consider repeat whether what we are doing is good or bad for the other party.