Bitcoin Forum

https://news.bitcoin.com/new-york-city-employee-disciplined-for-mining-bitcoin-at-work/

A New York City employee was recently caught mining bitcoin at work, which stemmed from a 2014 incident. Vladimir Ilyayev is a worker for the city’s department of education. He admitted to bypassing work security and mining bitcoin on the job without the proper permissions. The City of New York Conflicts of Interest Board disciplines him as a result of the action.

The case report summarized Ilyayev’s admissions: “I ran bitcoin mining software on my New York City Employee Disciplined For Mining Bitcoin at WorkDOE computer from 6:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. every night from March 19, 2014, until April 17, 2014….During that time, I monitored the progress of my bitcoin mining software from my home computer using remote access software.”

Furthermore, Ilyayev admitted to installing the equipment during work and profiting from the mining activity when he was supposed to be working. His code of conduct for employment states he was not supposed to be engaging in any kind of personal finance transactions while working. He also admitted to the dates that he began installing the mining software without permission from the DOE.

Sanctions against Ilyayev; Bitcoin Mining at Work
After the board investigated the case, they decided to punish Ilyayev financially. According to the report, for misusing City time and engaging in profit making activity, Ilyayev had to forfeit 4 days of leave. This totals out to about $611. The employee agreed with the punishment and signed off on it.

Other news sources reported this kind of bitcoin mining by DOE employees has happened before. There was an incident back in 2015 with a DOE network engineer. This kind of “wrongful” bitcoin or cryptocurrency mining is somewhat attractive, and may continue into the future.

He must have been CPU mining Bitcoin. Even in 2014, the hash rates were really crappy for CPU mining. He should have done something like litecoin and exchanged for BTC

If he wants to mine cryptocurrencies he should have at least a pc of his own, since he was doing it at work i think it is unethical and unproffesional, besides you need storage for the coins you have mine, his storage might be a liability if used at work, withoit proper protection ot can be easily hacked.

Judging by the name it was a russian hacker.
The punishment wasn't very strict, he got lucky. In most cases installing third party software that allow you to access government computer from home is a serious infringement. I'd expect to be fired after doing that + stealing power for personal gain.

Did anyone noticed how low the sanction is? Only $611? If he has gotten away using the PC for mining in 2014 then he could probably get around $1000 back then?

Furthermore, Ilyayev admitted to installing the equipment during work and profiting from the mining activity when he was supposed to be working.

I think that alone should be enough to put harsher punishment with this guy. Or even must be terminated for using the PC for his own purpose and profiting from it.

He had to mine with a gpu. In 2014 there were already decent asics available and bitcoin cpu mining was a thing of the past. Even with a single gpu it was very hard to get anything. They said he mined bitcoin, so my first guess would be he was using usb miners plugged into USB, but the power consumption of those units was so small that it wasn't worth the risk. Maybe he had a single bedroom apartment and couldn't sleep with a pc on...

Actually i have a few question about this topic.
What is the purpose creating this topic ? i can not see any benefit from it and what i can see it was an old story from 2014.
it was created by them because they do not know what should they write for their website.
or i missed something in here might be?

He did it using CPU/GPU mining,that mean he did it back then in 2014ish and not right now.
Can you guys still mining using CPU/GPU right now(profitable) ?
Seems like OP creating this topic to show us a 'bad' result because of Bitcoin ? no?

Not even once he replied one of your comments,and all of his comments are pro to BCC/BCH.
trying to pick up another civil war ???

Lol, NO, he should have done his mining at home!  Obviously, because look at what the outcome was.  Having a state job and abusing the internet just don't mix.   I'm surprised they didn't fire his ass--but he's probably in a union.  What he got off with, the fine, wasn't too bad. If it'd been porn he got busted for, forget it.

I don't see any issue on the actions taken by the DOE against the employee. Rather I am shocked that DOE only punished him for just $611 and nothing else. He didn't loose his job. If the similar thing happens with any private company, he would have lost his job for sure.

However, I also support the company because he was supposed to be working for the entire duration in the office and not mining. We all need to learn how to keep our online and offline life separate. Earn from your day job and use your free time for bitcoins. That makes complete sense.

There is not much to see the man is guilty, he abused his position, we love bitcoin but that is the truth I’m surprised he was not fired, since he generated a lot of expenses for the company.

Pretty lenient punishment, he probably made more than that during his time mining. He could have easily be fired for 1. Installing a Third party software 2. Abusing the free electricity 3. Spent time installing the miners instead of working.

I wonder how much bitcoins can he mine daily with the office PC, with the hash rate difficulty at the moment, I don't think he is able to mine much bitcoin from solo mining, and the company have to incurred a huge amount of electricity bills because of his actions.

Well, it's good that someone from the education department seems to be interested in bitcoin. But he just did it in the wrong way to explore it. As much as i encourage people to search up bitcoin and try to get people to get their hands on a few, i do not condone this type of behaviour where you sacrifice producitvity and other people's equipment and electricity for your own benefit. There is really no difference between this and stealing imo.


Probably not much, it was just a waste of his 4 day leave in my opinion which coudl have been better spent on holidaying with his family or even just taking a casual job if he really needed to get some more money. It was an unusually unprofitable move for him, imo. Remember that in 2014 the diffiiculty was already shooting up, and you definitely couldn't solo mine profitably.

I'm wondering why you would waste your valuable time writing an essay on a post you see no value in.You must not value your time much. In that case, a response would be great.

Secondly, since it looks like you suffer from some sort of reading difficulty. I will take the time to explain to you. The article clearly states that though the employee was caught 2014, only recently has he been fined/disciplined.

Thirdly, if you did a little bit of research instead of running your mouth. You would know that this ruling was only announced this past Monday by the Conflicts of Interested Board.

I hope I have cleared some of your questions.
Fourthly, you implied i wanted to start another civil war. My answer to you is, i didnt know there was one. but if there is lets get one this straight, I am in the crypto space for profit. If you think for one second I have the time or day to get into your civil wars, think again. I will put my money whereever I think I will maximise my profits. Yes that includes BCH. I dont participate in mobs,not a follower. My opinions I based on the research I have done, not because I am following a clique. And yes I have thoroughly researched the politics behind the BTC/BCH hard fork.

I hope I have cleared some of your questions.

Is this not theft of company resources, he should have been fired. On top of it all, he was a manager.


It was a slap in the wrist. I am amazed at how some people would risk their jobs for a quick buck.

By my calculations, he earned around $0.45 worth of bitcoins and it cost the city $18 in electricity.

How do you know how much hashpower he had? 
You're probably right anyway, whatever he had earned it was a complete waste, even with a decent graphics card onboard. I'd fire his sorry ass for using company resources for a private matter. It's just like a truck driver that delivers stuff for a company during the day and at night moves stuff for friends and family, but the company has to fill the tank anyway.

According to the article he was mining with a PC and I was assuming a generous 500 MH/s.

How can he be a hacker when he did not steal anything digitally . :P These sort of activities were very common in the past and it had a toll on the companies which were victims for sure as the electricity charges surged and many companies took a while to sort these sort of behaviors from their employee and he is really lucky to get a small punishment while i might fire them for misusing company property for personal gains.

He used a company property for mining for his own personal interest and profit so it was rightful for him to be sanctioned. If he was that interested in mining then he can do it in his own PC but I think he is just being resourceful but in a wrong way.

As some would say “If I was his boss at work, this guy is really going to be fired. He was wrong, he left the job he's supposed to do for his country, and was busy mining bitcoin”...but may looking at the case, maybe this guy wasn't paid enough monthly salary. Maybe he had lots of problems that his monthly salary can't solve. Or maybe he's a greedy a-hole. We don't know his condition… So don't judge.

LOL, the desktop at work are super slow and I'm guessing he didn't actually make that much. At least he didn't have to pay electricity costs, but just seems useless to me. If I was his boss i would probably fire him in a second, but he may have a bad wage and you can't blame him for wanting to earn more.

Guess he was trying to take advantage of not having to pay the electric bill where he mined. Imagine if he actually did end up mining a good bit, how much money he actually earned mining on the job. I wonder if the risk was worth the reward. Wonder what the guy is up to now, hopefully mining legit

I don't think it is that profitable using those softwares to mine bitcoin. GPU mining is long dead but still used by some people that can't afford a good mining hardware. Still, I think if I am using a computer in my work I will do the same. I mean we don't need to rely wholely in our job, we must find some ways to earn more though the side job he made is on the rules.

This is really unethical doing. I really don't like the idea of getting payed by your work but you are doing other source of income. This is what should a bitcoin user or miner have to understand. They should separate bitcoin activities from their actual work.

  This reminds me of the story about the guy who used his work (or school's?) super computer to mine Dogecoin a few years back when it was actually worth something. It went viral.
  The guy got caught and I don't remember if he was punished, but imagine how much he made. lol

The punishment of 4 leaves which amount to $611 is lenient. I wonder whether he is able to earn $611 mining for 12 hours a day in one month, considering the cost of the equipment too. Or did he use the computer provided at work?

Wow, the guy got off pretty easy. He must have had some friends or connections in higher positions. What he did amounts to stealing and that seems easily like grounds for being fired from his job at the very least. So he keeps his job and whatever amount of bitcoins he made which in a few years could dwarf the $611 dollars he was made to pay.

I'm surprised too. He was punished for $611 only. It's clear he goes beyond the rules. First, he used the office property for bitcoin mining, which is an unacceptable activity during working hours. Second, he's also used the internet, which is supposed to be used for work purposes only. It seems $611 was a light punishment unless of course if he's the office owner or one of the investors for their product.

There's nothing wrong with bitcoin mining but do it at home. It's not an office activity.

It was rude of him to mine Bitcoin while he was at work, and used the office equipment and internet, most of all their elctricity. I would have posed a higher penalty on him if I were his boss though. I have no problem with bitcoin mining but this should not have been mixed with his work, he could have done this at home. This is an abuse of his office and is very unethical as an employee.