- Suspect operated 80 ASIC miners in a repurposed barn, police say.
- Officials say man used illegal connection to link devices to grid.
- Region is building 15 crypto mining centres, two of which come online this year.
Russia’s northwestern Komi Republic wants to reinvent itself as the country’s top Bitcoin mining hotspot by the end of 2026 — but some aren’t prepared to wait that long.
Police have arrested a man who allegedly stole $80,000 worth of power from the region’s grid to power his rigs.
The man, a 39-year-old farm owner, used a series of illegal connections to link his devices to the republic’s power grid in an outbuilding on his property, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Komi Republic branch wrote.
In 2024, Komi…
