Thief jeopardizes state secrets by using nuclear power plant to mine cryptocurrency-Computerfanfield

People will do anything to get their hands on that sweet cryptocurrency including, perhaps one of the most audacious yet, using secret areas in a nuclear power plant to hide and power mining machines.

According to a court case, a person with high level access to parts of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant placed mining machines at one of the plant’s administrative buildings and siphoned electricity from the local grid, RT reports .

The mining network created by the individual was connected to the nuclear plant’s intranet. As a result, authorities believe the scheme has compromised the site’s security arrangements, which are considered a state secret.

On July 10, authorities raided the administrative building and seized computer equipment including six AMD Radeon RX470 graphics cards, PCI risers, power supplies, coolers, a motherboard, a USB flash drive, and a hard drive. The frame on which all the mining hardware was mounted was also removed, local news reports .

Given the nature of the power plant, external computer equipment is not authorized for use at the nuclear facility.

Seeing as it was a selection of GPUs seized, it’s unlikely that the opportunistic miner was mining Bitcoin. It’s far more likely that they were looking to score some ASIC resistant altcoins. However, reports have not clarified what or how many cryptocurrencies were mined.

Despite the specialist hardware and complex setup required, mining cryptocurrency is a pretty simple equation. Miners need to be sure that their operating costs don’t exceed the potential gain from mined cryptocurrencies. That means balancing the cost of hardware with the cost of electricity. Free electricity means more profit.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen those hungry for cryptocurrency steal electricity from government-owned facilities.

Last year, a Chinese man was arrested for stealing electricity from a railway substation to power his cryptocurrency mining rigs. He managed to save nearly $15,000 worth of electricity in doing so. How much electricity the Ukraine-based miner stole hasn’t been disclosed.

It’s back to fission down the back of the sofa for spare change now this Ukraine-based miner‘s operation has been shut down.

Facebook’s ‘cryptocurrency’ Libra may be in more trouble than we thought

Facebook ‘s ‘cryptocurrency’ Libra may be in even deeper trouble than we thought if a recent report is anything to go by.

According to the Financial Times , it seems that some of Facebook ‘s early backers have been spooked by increasing regulatory scrutiny.

It’s being reported that at least three of Facebook ‘s supporters have privately discussed ways in which to distance themselves from the project .

When it was first announced , the Libra Association – the independent body responsible for overseeing the ‘cryptocurrency’ – boasted 28 members, which included several heavyweights from the financial sector (Visa, Mastercard ), and technology industry ( Spotify , Uber ), alongside Calibra (a Facebook subsidiary).

At the time, news surfaced that each of the members had made a non-binding pledge to invest at least $10 million into the project , which Facebook hopes could disrupt the global payments arena and boost financial inclusivity.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Facebook ‘s proposition unnerved regulators across the globe . It even reportedly prompted an anti-trust investigation by EU officials.

Now, the FT it’s spoken to two of Libra ‘s founding members, who say they are concerned about the intensifying regulatory scrutiny and are considering walking away altogether.

Additionally, another supporter says they are concerned about publicly supporting Facebook ‘s digital currency as this may attract unwanted attention from regulators tasked with overseeing their own business .

“I think it’s going to be difficult for partners who want to be seen as in compliance [with their own regulators] to be out there supporting [Libra]” one of the partners told the FT .

As a result , Facebook is said to be growing reportedly tired of the lack of public support from the ‘cryptocurrency’ founding partners.

“ Facebook is tired of being the only people putting their neck out,” one of Libra ‘s supporters added.

Just to be clear, the FT says that founding partners are widely supportive of Libra as a concept and its potential to foster financial inclusion.

But, two of the companies have apparently discussed what the “right next steps” should be.

“Some of those conversations [about regulation] should have taken place before the launch, to understand how regulators would think about this, so there wasn’t so much pushback,” one partner said.

Indeed , Facebook seems to be working backward . The tech giant initially said it was looking to push Libra live in 2020, but the way things are going, this seems highly unlikely.

But, who knows, maybe I’ll stand corrected.

Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘SEC rejects another Bitcoin ETF proposal’

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.

Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Nietzsche used to say: Time is money!

Bitcoin Price

We closed the day, October 9 2019, at a price of $8,595. That’s a respectable 4.44 percent increase in 24 hours, or $365. It was the highest closing price in fourteen days.

We’re still 57 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).

Bitcoin market cap

Bitcoin’s market cap ended the day at $154,579,656,110. It now commands 67 percent of the total crypto market.

Bitcoin volume

Yesterday’s volume of $19,384,942,333 was the highest in thirteen days, 26 percent above the year’s average, and 57 percent below the year’s high. That means that yesterday, the Bitcoin network shifted the equivalent of 400 tons of gold.

Bitcoin transactions

A total of 310,911 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 7 percent below the year’s average and 31 percent below the year’s high.

Bitcoin transaction fee

Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.36. That’s $3.35 below the year’s high of $3.71.

Bitcoin distribution by address

As of now, there are 12,512 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 5.6 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.5 percent, and the top 1000 34.3 percent.

Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin

With a market capitalization of $154 billion, Unilever has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.

Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million

On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.

He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s 92.4 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $114,366 by now, according to dickline.info.

Bitcoin Energy Consumption

Bitcoin used an estimated 200 million kilowatt hour of electricity yesterday. On a yearly basis that would amount to 73 terawatt hour. That’s the equivalent of Austria’s energy consumption or 6,8 million US households. Bitcoin’s energy consumption now represents 0.3% of the whole world’s electricity use.

Bitcoin on Twitter

Yesterday 17,990 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 4.2 percent below the year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day this year about Bitcoin was 41,687.