Police and South African Revenue Service agents raided an unauthorized warehouse in Vryburg, North West, on Thursday, 4 May 2023, confiscating Bitcoin mining equipment and illegally-manufactured alcohol.announcing the successful raid, SARS said the Bitcoin miners were illegally connected to Vryburg’s electrical grid.
“The abuse of duty-free labels to circumvent payable duties and other criminal undertakings found at this warehouse undermines our economy and will be confronted and met with the full might of the law,” said Kieswetter., Kieswetter explained that seizing Bitcoin mining equipment was incidental.Kieswetter said SARS expects every business to be legally registered as a company, and to be registered for tax purposes.
Cryptocurrency mining rigs composed of Antminer S9 ASIC machines taken in 2018. Photographer: Akos Stiller/BloombergBitcoin “mining” is a process of solving a complex mathematical problem that has the dual role of validating new transactions and securing the blockchain’s distributed ledger against tampering.
Although less power-hungry approaches have been developed, such as Ethereum and Cardano’s “proof of stake” systems, the Bitcoin faithful argue that nothing beats proof of work’s security and incentive mechanism.Anyone who can mine without paying for electricity will be much more profitable than those that do.