More than 6,000 people were arrested for stealing electricity to mine crypto—Malaysia’s crackdown is pretty strong. It’s fine to legally hold crypto, but don’t get any crooked ideas.

Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Shamsul Anuar said in Parliament that between 2022 and May 2026, Malaysian authorities seized more than 75,000 cryptocurrency mining machines in over 3,000 nationwide raids and arrested 629 people. The related operations were carried out jointly by the Malaysian police, the national power company Tenaga Nasional Berhad, and local authorities, focusing on cracking down on illegal mining conducted through unauthorized power hookups, tampering with meters, disrupting power supply systems, or unlicensed operations. Shamsul Anuar said that Malaysia allows the holding and trading of cryptocurrencies but does not recognize them as legal tender. (Decrypt)