The Ukrainian government has announced that they shut the largest cryptocurrency farm in the country and seized its assets, including 3800 PlayStation 4s (pictured above, credit SBU). This was a piece of almost 5000 parts of computer equipment seized.
PlayStation 4 cryptocurrency mining?
The government announcement (which we're using machine translation for) doesn't directly say what the PlayStation 4s were used for, but it is difficult to imagine anyone hooking up this many unless they were being used for cryptocurrency mining in this building. This would be the first definitive proof of PlayStation 4s used for cryptocurrency mining if that is indeed the case. It wouldn't be without complete precedent, as seen by the homebrewed Game Boy and Raspberry Pi bitcoin set up, but it would be new and might explain some of the difficulties that were had in acquiring consoles last year. It also brings to mind the old reports of the U.S. government hooking together over 1500 PlayStation 3s to build a super computer.
Why was the Ukraine cryptocurrency farm shut down?
The reason that the government raided the facilities is because they violated the criminal code of Ukraine via theft of electricity. This was done in how they accounted for the electricity, which allegedly was done in conjunction with local officials. In the announcement, the government says the monthly losses from this location was 5 to 7 million UAH, which translates to between roughly 180k and 250k US.
The government notes that the unaccounted amount of power removed from the grid here could leave entire neighborhoods of the city of Vinnytsia without power. Documentation was also found of how they were doing the electrical accounting. Beyond the PlayStation 4s and documents, more than 500 GPUs and 50 processors were seized, along with a variety of notebooks, phones, and flash drives.
What do you think of PlayStation 4 cryptocurrency mining? Can you think of another reason for a cryptocurrency farm to have 3800 PlayStation 4s? Let us know in the comments below!
