Power Company Tip Leads to Bitcoin Mining Raid

Virginia bitcoin enthusiast, Jonas Diener, 37, will avoid jail time for cannabis discovered in his home during a police raid. The home invasion occurred after a power company official tipped off police that the bitcoin miner was using an “incredible” amount of electricity in his home.

The employee told law enforcement officials the house was using eight times the amount of power a typical home that size would use. This caused police suspicion of a marijuana growing operation in the home. During the raid, police arrested the man and seized all his Bitcoin mining equipment, a number of physical bitcoins, and a small quantity of marijuana.

Per the terms of the plea agreement, the man received six months in jail, all suspended, for misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, while a more serious charge of marijuana possession was dropped. The man appeared in Rockingham County Circuit Court on Thursday.

Bitcoin is a software-based online payment system described by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 and introduced as open-source software in 2009. Payments are recorded in a public ledger using its own unit of account, which is also called bitcoin.

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