Take a look inside this underground crypto mining farm in Ukraine with its 3,800 PlayStations and 5,000 computers

Take a look inside this underground crypto mining farm in Ukraine with its 3,800 PlayStations and 5,000 computers

Ukraine police last week seized around 9,000 games consoles and computers in an illegal crypto mine.

The mine was stealing as much as $259,300 in electricity each month, investigators said.

Police said it was the largest underground crypto mine to have been discovered in Ukraine.

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A huge underground cryptocurrency mining operation has been busted by Ukraine police for allegedly stealing electricity from the grid.

Police said they’d seized 5,000 computers and 3,800 games consoles that were being used in the illegal mine, the largest discovered in the country.

The mine, in the city of Vinnytsia, near Kyiv, stole as much as $259,300 in electricity each month, the Security Service of Ukraine said. To conceal the theft, the operators of the mine used electricity meters that did not reflect their actual energy consumption, officials said.

“Such illegal activity could lead to power surges and left people without electricity,” the security service said.

Police said that criminal proceedings had begun over the theft of water, electricity, and thermal energy. The mine was run by residents of Kyiv and Vinnytsia, a city about three hours outside the capital, police said.

Gaming consoles in the crypto mine in a photo released by officials. Security Service of Ukraine

Photos released by state investigators show a cavernous room filled wall-to-wall with metal racks of neatly lined-up computers and Sony Playstation consoles.

Along with the computers and consoles, officials said they also seized more than 500 graphic cards, 50 processors, and documentation on the site’s electricity consumption. They also took notebooks, phones, and flash drives, according to the press statement.

Illegal Crypto Mining Farm With Almost 5,000 Computers Busted in Ukraine

Last week, the Ukraine police unit exposed a massive underground crypto mining farm in the city of Vinnytsia, three hours from the capital city of Kyiv. The police have begun criminal proceedings against the operators of the farm, who hail from Kyiv and Vinnytsia, for unauthorized use of water, electricity, and thermal energy.

The operations were located in the former warehouse of the JSC Vinnytsiaoblenerho, a Ukrainian company engaged in power transmission and distribution. During the raid, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) seized 3,800 PlayStation gaming consoles, over 500 graphic cards, 50 processors, notebooks, phones, and flash drives used during the operations.

As per the University of Cambridge’s analysis, globally bitcoin mining consumes 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity every year. This is more than the electricity consumption of entire countries like Argentina or the Netherlands. Preliminary estimates suggest that the Vinnytsia operation was drawing power in the range of 5-7 million Ukrainian hryvnia (US$ 186,000 - 259,300) per month.

To hide this consumption from the authorities, they were using electricity meters that did not show the real consumption. The investigators are now searching whether officials from JSC Vinnytsiaoblenerho were also involved in the operations.

The recent bust comes closely after another illegal crypto farm was shut down in Chernihiv, in the northern part of Ukraine earlier this month. In June, a smaller operation was busted with electricity stolen worth $70,000 in two months.

While cryptocurrency is not illegal in Ukraine, it is not a legal tender either. The Ukrainian government is pushing for Virtual Assets Law that will allow Ukrainian citizens to own and transact with cryptocurrencies. The country has over 100 companies involved in this sector and plans to make itself a global destination for cryptocurrencies, mining them with nuclear power, Foreign Policy reported.

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The Virtual Assets Law is still a draft though it adds Ukraine to the list of countries like El Salvador and Paraguay who are betting big on cryptocurrencies amidst a crackdown by China.

PS4 “Crypto” Warehouse Was Actually Farming FIFA Crap

While initial reports last week indicated that an enormous warehouse discovered in Ukraine packed full of PS4 consoles was being used to mine crypto, a little further investigation has found that the machines were probably being used to farm FIFA Ultimate Team cards.

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Is that better? Worse? I’ll leave it up to you. Ukrainian site Delo didn’t buy the initial explanation of it being a crypto farm, based on the type of machine being used (PS4s? Not very economical vs graphics cards). A lso the fact that in some of the images release by Ukrainian security forces last week, you could see game discs popping out of the consoles.

Sources told Delo that the warehouse was actually likely being used as a farm to obtain and sell FIFA Ultimate Team cards, with the PS4 consoles playing the game automatically in order to obtain in-game currency, and either the coins accrued or even the account itself can then be resold on the market for actual money.

If this all sounds like a lot of work just for some accounts and coins, then you may not be aware of just how much money is sloshing around the FIFA community. Last year, for example, EA’s Ultimate Team sales amounted to over $1.6 billion across the company’s entire lineup, with EA specifically pointing out that, “a substantial portion…was derived from FIFA Ultimate Team. ”

That’s not overall FIFA sales. That’s just in-game digital sales surrounding FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode, which is built around the idea of constructing a team for online play by paying for decks of virtual cards that contain random assortments of virtual players.

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Having faced increasing scrutiny over the game mode, which many allege is simply gambling—and has resulted in outright bans in regions like Belgium—EA has taken steps recently to try to change the way Ultimate Team cards are purchased, like allowing players to preview the contents of a pack before buying it.