Electricity theft for mining in Malaysia is really quite serious. I only understood after seeing official data recently: over the past 5 years, the cumulative loss from electricity theft by illegal mining sites has reached 4.57 billion ringgit. That is equivalent to 1.1 billion US dollars. The scale is clearly no longer something minor.

Even more shocking is that TNB (Malaysia’s state-owned power utility) uncovered 13,827 locations involved in electricity theft from 2020 to August 2025. More than 13,800 sites—just imagine how many people are tampering with electricity meters and privately wiring connections to steal electricity to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The Ministry of Energy described this phenomenon very plainly—not just electricity theft; it is essentially siphoning off national resources, posing threats to the power system, public safety, and economic stability.

Law enforcement by the government is also being stepped up. Last August, there were reports that enforcement units deployed road rollers and directly crushed 985 mining rigs into scrap metal. The value of the destroyed equipment was 1.97 million ringgit. This kind of hard-hitting enforcement approach can certainly deter some people, but it is obviously not enough—so TNB is now also going all out on the technical front. It has deployed large numbers of smart electricity meters, and is also piloting high-resolution monitoring of distribution transformers at substations, aiming to track electricity theft by identifying anomalies in electricity usage data.

What’s interesting is that doing Bitcoin mining in Malaysia itself is not illegal; the problem lies in stealing electricity. Under the Malaysian Electricity Supply Act, any act of tampering with power supply lines without authorization is a crime. For minor cases, offenders can be fined 1 million ringgit or imprisoned for 5 years. For cases with more serious circumstances, fines can reach 5 million ringgit plus 10 years in prison. The deterrent effect of this law is still very strong.

The whole story reflects a phenomenon: as long as the profits are big enough, there will always be people willing to take risks to steal electricity. On Malaysia’s side, the government has been continuously upgrading its crackdown and enforcement measures—starting with sweeps as far back as 2018, and still increasing its efforts now—showing that the problem of electricity theft for mining is not something that can be resolved overnight.