Large Crypto Mining Farm Close To Moscow Gets Robbed
According to local media, armed and masked robbers plundered a crypto mining facility located not far from Moscow. Dozens of video cards were stolen by the unidentified perpetrators in the incident, which has become the latest one in the theft of coin mining equipment. This has been ramping up in the Russian Federation.
Crypto mining farm compromised
Close to the city of Domodedovo in the Russian capital is a village called Kuchino where a crypto mining farm was raided by robbers. A report on Wednesday disclosed that the mining facility was inside a warehouse and it belonged to the supermarket chain called Vkusvill.
The workers of the security company that oversees the compound disclosed that four individuals who were wearing masks had broken into the warehouse. The perpetrators had weapons that they used to threaten the guards and had cuffed them.
Then they made away with four containers that comprised of about 100 graphics processing units (GPUs), along with other hardware that is used for minting digital coins. According to law enforcement authorities, the value of the mining equipment that was stolen is around 1 million rubles, which is approximately $18,000.
The warehouse had surveillance cameras installed for security purposes and the attackers were aware of them. Therefore, they had stolen the storage devices that were used for keeping the video records in order to protect their identities. Russian law enforcement is now on the hunt for these thieves and if they are arrested, they could be sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Theft of mining equipment
This is not the first recent case of stolen mining equipment to have emerged in Russia. There had been another incident in June that occurred in Irkutsk, as operators of a mining hotel had vanished. They had accumulated mining equipment from their clients worth $1.9 million and had disappeared with all the hardware.
In the last few years, the number of such incidents has been on the rise, particularly because crypto mining activities have become extremely popular.
No regulation yet
It should be noted that one of the crypto-related activities that have not been regulated in Russia as yet is bitcoin mining. The cheap energy resources in Russia, combined with the cool climate have made it one of the crypto mining hotspots. These offer it a competitive advantage over a number of other reasons. But, there has been no regulation introduced for it as yet.
However, authorities in the Russian Federation have taken steps to restrict the spread of crypto mining in homes. This has been accomplished by hiking up electricity rates for mining activities that are conducted in garages and basements with the use of improved installations.
Due to this phenomenon, there have been breakdowns, along with excessive power consumption seen in residential areas that have heavily subsidized electricity.
As far as regulation is concerned, the bill that was implemented in January 2021 does not cover crypto mining and other crypto-related activities, but another is scheduled to address them.
