Title ..checks out! I wonder why the government did not just seize these miners and put them to use for the local economy? If it makes money, why not?
If the government seizes drugs, they don't just redistribute it because it "makes money."
[1]: Regardless of whether you agree with the government here. I also don't know if bitcoin mining is illegal or if it was just the stealing of electricity that was a problem.
They seized them because they were used in other crime, ie, stealing electricity.
They could have recouped some of the cost of that stolen electricity by selling them to an outfit that actually pays for electricity.
This is the usual performative nonsense by a foolish government. They could have easily sold them at auction like they do with all sorts of other seized goods. ASIC's go for a few thousand dollars each.
EDIT: According to Wikipedia, it's heavily tiered and heavily subsidized, but also that it shouldn't be particularly helpful for mining, unless they're splitting it into a bunch of accounts to stay in one of the lower tiers:
Domestic consumer pricing per kWh used, subsidized
4.95 @ 1 to 200 kWh
7.59 @ 201 to 300 kWh
11.73 @ 301 to 600 kWh
12.41 @ 601 to 900 kWh
12.98 @ 901 kWh onwards
(exchange rate of 4.4 MYR to US$1 on 24 November 2016)
- RM 0.218 (USD 0.052) per kWh for the first 200kWh
- RM 0.334 (USD 0.079) per kWh for the next 100kWh
- RM 0.516 (USD 0.120) per kWh for the 300kWh after
Those prices are before the 1.6% tax by the government. And furthermore, any usage above 600kWh is taxed an additional 6% by the energy company.
Generally average about 250kwh per month for 2 people in a 1200 sqf apartment with occasional aircon use. Paying ~6c/kwh is much better than nearly everywhere else on Earth. As a westerner in the country it's basically a rounding error compared to other life costs.
With government bonuses that get thrown around the cost really isn't much unless you are incredibly wasteful or have a huge family/house. Most of the country has gotten big power handouts for covid. I paid 30 RM ($7.50 USD) a few months ago. A pint down the pub costs nearly that.
They seized them because they were used in other crime, ie, stealing electricity.
Do police not auction off the cars they seize for their use as a getaway car?
As far as my information goes, there were times when mining a >30k$ coin was possible for less than 4k$ in electricity, if you had access to really cheap sources. That's far from "don't really make much money".
For me the price is whatever it is on the exchange I can use. It's basically $30k for all that it matters.
That is: as long as arbitrage between the markets is viable (for instance, it must be possible to move Bitcoin and fiat between the markets at a low enough cost), even though there's no single global market, the prices will tend to be close enough.