Egyptian National Police (ENP) have smashed a mining farm for mining Ethereum cyrptocurrency and arrested a man in Badr City (located north east in the Cairo Governorate).

Ethereum (ETH) is just like Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, that is a decentralised digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer Eth network without the need for intermediaries.

We were tipped off about the presence of a sophisticated computerized system at an address in Badr City that are being used to illegally mine cryptocurrencies

Quoted from the MOI’s press release

During Badr City’s mining farm raid, police have seized 19 mining rigs that were used in the “Illegal mining” operations. Mining farm is a data center, technically equipped with dedicated computers or miners to mine cryptocurrencies.

One man was arrested on charges of money laundering through cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are illegal in Egypt. It may still be possible for Egyptians to acquire Bitcoins through online cryptocurrency exchanges or by purchasing Bitcoins from Facebook and Telegram crypto groups, however, that would be illegal.

MOI Press Release Video

Mohsen Adel, Vice President of the Egyptian Association for Finance and Investment Studies (EAFIS), said in an interview with Youm7 (a private Egyptian newspaper), that the phenomenon of (virtual) electronic currencies has recently spread in the global economy, specially Bitcoin.

He added, “Bitcoin” is a decentralized cryptocurrency-based digital currency, which is a decentralized currency that is not controlled by non-users, Bitcoin has became so popular lately but it’s only problem that it cannot be monitored by the government entities or the central bank like the regular fiat currencies.

He also added, China is preparing to launch their cryptocurrency, which has become a smart solution for the Chinese to handle the current trade war with the United States.

He pointed out that he recently noticed that many Egyptians use these crypto currencies via the Internet and we see that dealers are exposed to frauds as a result of using this type of non governmental regulated insecure payments.

Yet, he believes that the importance of cryptocurrencies will grow in the future. Cryptocurrencies are the currencies of real free-market economies. Their future depends on the confidence they inspire consumers.

The Egyptian Society for Finance and Investment Studies was established in 2010 (according to the Egyptian Civil Associations Law) by a group of investment experts in Egypt.

The Egyptian Association for Finance and Investment Studies works to serve certain goals, the most important of which is to support the basic concepts of the non-banking financial services industry, especially the field of financial markets, in addition to disseminating the basics of studying investment approaches among many sectors of society and developing the investment climate by spreading sound investment awareness.

An Irish drug dealer who decided to hide his fortune in Bitcoin has lost the private keys to his wallets that contained around 6,000 Bitcoin (around $57m) on them.

According to Irish Times, The drug dealer lost his keys after hiding them with his fishing rod, which has gone missing. The dealer bought most of the bitcoin in late 2011 and early 2012 using cash he made growing crops of cannabis.

In early 2017 he had around 6,000 bitcoin in one account but he feared it may be too easy for a hacker to hack it so he decided to spread his Bitcoin fortune across 12 new wallets and transferred exactly 500 bitcoin to each wallet.

He then printed out the private keys for his newly created accounts onto an A4 piece of paper and hid the paper inside the aluminum cap of his case containing his rod at his rented house.

He was arrested for growing weed at his house in 2017 and jailed for five years. The landlord decided to clean up the house and trough the dealer’s belongings away to a dump.

Garda officers said they were hopeful advances in technology would one day enable them to access the bitcoin so it could be sold.

Losing private keys to crypto wallets is a genuine problem for crypto that needs to be solved.