Malaysian officials have arrested 28-year-old suspect on charges of allegedly running illicit crypto mining, a Sunday (Jan. 2) report from Micky says.
The police have identified 30 mining stations using electricity stolen from the grid. The stolen electricity was valued at RM 2 million ($478,000), and the operation involved stealing electricity worth $102,239.
While crypto mining isn’t illegal in Malaysia, stealing power is punishable by large penalties, and interfering with power lines is punishable with a $23,700 fine and a five-year prison sentence.
The commander in the state of Perak, where the suspect was arrested, said they’re still trying to identify who’s behind the mining and how long that has been going on.
In addition, the commander said there had been 1,720 bitcoin mining equipment, 15 monitors, 22 CPUs, 16 keyboards, 56 modems and numerous fans and TV cameras stolen.
Malaysia reportedly puts out around 4.5% of global mining power, according to numbers from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
Meanwhile, Lee Jae-myung’s presidential campaign in South Korea will take bitcoin, ethereum and three other cryptocurrencies as payments, according to a Sunday (Jan. 2) UToday report.
The three additional cryptos haven’t yet been decided, but will be chosen at a future date by his election committee.
This month, Lee’s campaign will begin taking contributions from those who want to pay in crypto, which will be converted to cash with the help of a local exchange. Lee’s campaign will also factor in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into the crypto fundraising plan.
With the new plan — the first presidential campaign in history to take crypto as payment — Lee plans to try and appeal to younger voters. Per the report, a survey published in November said 40.5% of respondents between 20 and 40 years old had reportedly invested in crypto.
Lee also recently said his plans included making South Korea the leader of a global cryptocurrency scene, calling the the digital coins an “undeniable reality” in a recent lecture.
In addition, Lee wants to make it so that cryptos would have more deduction limits and wouldn’t be taxed.
