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- 1 Crypto miners were drawing electricity illegally from North Star Electric Cooperative, a local electricity provider.
- 2 The culprits were gone before the authorities arrived at the scene.
A lawsuit has been registered against a now-separated couple living in Minnesota for drawing thousands of dollars worth of electricity from a regional power company. The energy was reportedly drawn to power Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations in Roosevelt according to American newspaper The Forum.
Culprits Escaped in Time
Business owners Jaenicke and Tina Fehlhaber were separated recently. The former also operates a YouTube segment dubbed “Degenerate Passive Income.” As the name suggests, it is focused on passive income generation. Several of his videos showcase his Bitcoin mining farms in regions like Roseau City in Minnesota and Grafton in North Dakota.
Crypto miners were drawing electricity from North Star Electric Cooperative, a local electricity provider, for one of their Bitcoin mining farms in Roosevelt. They notice a significant surge in energy consumption from the location. The company, with the help of law enforcement officers, was able to backtrack a line leading to the location where they found the mining rigs.
Unfortunately, the culprits were gone before the authorities arrived at the scene. North Star’s lawyer, Joel Fremstad, explains “It is more than you need to run a school, for example, or commercial building, and this as I said was going on for months if not years 24 hours a day.”
Jaenicke allegedly tried to bribe an employee working in the electricity company to draw additional power, however, the offer was rejected straightforwardly. According to Fremstad, “He knew what he was doing, whether he made all the physical connections or just the ‘general contractor’ for this, that’s what we don’t yet know.”
Crypto mining is a process where miners are required to run several computers to solve complex mathematical problems. Solving it enables them to add a block into the blockchain and in turn receive a set number of BTC in their digital wallets. Nearly a million crypto miners are active globally in a race to be the first to add a new block.
The activity is becoming more attractive as Bitcoin halving nears. Halving is a recurring event that slashes rewards to mine BTC in half. Currently, a miner gets 6.25 BTC as a reward to mine a Bitcoin block. Upon inception, anyone mining the virtual currency was eligible to get 50 BTCs.
Bitcoin halving is due next year in April. Additionally, a rise in mining difficulty would eventually coerce crypto miners to upgrade their mining rigs or annex to their existing fleet. Some analysts believe that the largest cryptocurrency in the market may reach over $100K in value following the halving.
As the culprits are still out of sight from authorities, many details associated with the case are yet to be unveiled. However, the Bitcoin miners were likely motivated by the potential profits the coin has to offer. As of now, BTC was trading at a market price of $38,700 at the time of writing.
Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast, with a major in macroeconomics and minor in business statistics. She believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks, and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning. She frequently researches, and posts content on the top altcoins, their theoretical working principles and technical price predictions.
