The Real Reason The Police Just Confiscated Thousands Of PS4s
With the release of the PlayStation 5, PS4 owners might be looking to ditch their old consoles. Meanwhile, those who can't get their hands on a PS5 might be in the market for a new PS4 Pro — not that scalpers make it easy to get one. Either way, PlayStation consoles are hard to come by, and it seems like Ukraine's Security Service (the SBU) hit the jackpot when it found almost 4,000 PS4s in a recent raid.
According to an announcement from the SBU (via Kotaku), the organization confiscated over 5,000 devices total, with roughly 3,800 of those devices being consoles. The SBU began investigating a possible cryptomining operation located in a warehouse near the power company in Vinnytsia. The SBU, according to Kotaku, has "accused the operation of leeching as much as $256,648 worth of energy from the surrounding grid using special electrical meters to hide the theft." Cryptomining uses a significant amount of processing power, which accounts for the thousands of devices being used for their computing power, as well as the uptick in energy use within the region.
For its part, the power distributor, Vinnytsiaoblenergo, claims that it has no knowledge of a cryptocurrency mining operation occurring on its property. It released a statement (via The Kyiv Post) that said the investigation from the SBU "does not correspond to reality."
Cryptocurrency continues to impact gaming in unexpected ways
The Kyiv Post indicated that Vinnytsiaoblenergo had increased energy output in the past to manipulate tariffs, and suggested that something similar could be happening in the warehouse full of consoles. However, neither agency proved anything yet. The Kyiv Post suggested, "there are two ways to look at crypto miners in Ukraine: as victims suffering from usually unsubstantiated raids of law enforcement or as criminals who import tech for crypto mining illegally and avoid taxation." Either way, the situation has left the SBU with thousands of devices and a mystery to solve.
Cryptocurrency continues to be a hot button topic, even in the gaming industry. FaZe Clan recently came under fire for promoting a cryptocurrency, only for the value of the coin to drop catastrophically. Even cryptos that focus on charity and goodwill, like DNP3's CluCoin, have been questioned when cryptocurrency's impact on the environment is taken into account. In the meantime, there's no word on what the SBU will do with the thousands of devices obtained from its raid. Who knows; maybe those PS4s will find their way back into the hands of gamers who can enjoy them.