[Quindecillion]

100 million baht in 2 years? So about $1.5m USD in a year.

That's not exactly "staggering" or significant in the context of the Bitcoin network. Unlikely that such operations have any meaningful control over the network or liquidity, even if it's just 1% of what's known.

You seem to think that these sorts of operations are somehow connected in a large coordinated cartel the controls the industry, but given that they're illegal, isn't it far more likely that these "black market" operators are fairly small by comparison to the legitimate players in the US?

The mining ban in China a couple of years back gave us a pretty good indication of the size of the legitimate industry in that country, and it absolutely DWARFS the biggest of the illegal examples you gave.

Interesting way to word it too, "illegal mining". They're just stealing electricity. If they used that stolen electricity for heating, you wouldn't call it "illegal heating", would you?

[ChainOfFools]

So you read the article, as well as the quote that I put above and therefore you know that this is estimated to be only 1% of the illegal mining done in _Thailand_ alone, and this in just the past couple of years when visibility of cryptocurrency has been well established even in non-tech circles.

It's been happening ever since crypto mining, especially Bitcoin, existed. Long before most anyone knew what mining was, or knew to look for it being done stealrhily on someone elses's dollar ...or baht. I didn't say I condone stealing electricity for any purpose, but there's a particular hypocrisy with crypto people who claim that mining costs chase the hash rate and difficulty adjustments ensure that everyone has a fair shot at winning a coin base. Obvious nonsense.

It's hypocrisy that crypto people, who like to think of themselves as some sort of sophisticated financial visiinary class, are so hopelessly naive that it would never even occur to them to consider that being rationally self interested will inevitably and swiftly devolve into outright theft, and the obfuscated consolidation of power favors the venal corrupt and those who are willing to benefit from wholesale theft, which is why such people are entrenched at the center of this so-called decentralized system.

[midmagico]

this logic would apply to literally every facet of human existence if it were true; your argument has devolved into "people would make more money if they were engaged in criminality and didn't get caught, therefore everyone eventually devolves into a criminal."

the papers studying the amount of black market activity in Bitcoin have consistently shown Bitcoin to be cleaner than the economies in virtually every country on the planet, except for the occasional ultra-clean tiny european state.

literally every bitcoiner since the first roll-out of the Silk Road and the resulting senatorial attacks on them, have been ultra-interested in exactly how much of their hobby is black market and how much is criminality. literally every single one of them is heavily invested in knowing more about the nature and extent of bitcoin criminality. to say that it didn't occur to them that self-interested criminals are operating in BitcoinLand is .. stupid.

[Quindecillion]

ChainOfFools is tilting at windmills.