According to a class-action lawsuit filed in the US district court for Northern California, Bitmain has been taking advantage of its customers the past couple years in an interesting way: mining crypto for itself, using their resources, during the “initialization” process. You read that right. According to at least one Bitmain customer and bitcoin miner, who is filing a suit for damages in excess of $5 million on behalf of miners everywhere, the initial period during which a miner is in its owners’ possession is spent mining for Bitmain’s benefit.
The lawsuit brought by Gor Gevorkyan, who lives in Los Angeles, alleges that the initialization process for a Bitmain miner can be several hours in length. An outfit that purchased, say, 500 or more units, could, therefore, contribute significant hash power to Bitmain — at no actual cost to the company. In fact, the company has already profited prior to receiving this hash power.
Per the filing, there is no way to know how many people are actually represented in the class-action lawsuit because they could feasibly number in the “hundreds of thousands.” Further, it notes that Bitmain did not always operate this way — previously, when miners were in “initialization” mode, they could be set to consume less power.
CCN |
https://www.ccn.com/lawsuit-claims-bitmain-mined-bitcoin-using-customer-devices/
