Several engineers from the Russian Nuclear Center were arrested for attempting to use one of the largest Russian supercomputers for mining Bitcoin (BTC), February 9.

The Federal Nuclear Center employs about 20,000 people and is located in the secret city of Sarov, where the first nuclear bomb was produced in the Soviet Union. Sarov is still closed to visitors from abroad and Russia without proper permission, and the border is surrounded by barbed wire and military patrols.

Tatiana Zalesskaya, head of the press service of the research institute, said: Interfax that "as far as [she] is aware," a criminal case has was launched against engineers:

"There was an unauthorized attempt to use computer facilities for […] it is a technically hopeless and criminally punishable activity"

The central supercomputer, which has a capacity of 1 petaflop – 1000 trln calculations per second – was not connected to the Internet for security reasons. When engineers tried to use it to exploit its power for mining, the security department was able to stop and apprehend the engineers.

Legislation that should legalize Bitcoin in Russia is in preparation, but the details of how mining would be regulated, miners may need to register with # 39, a central authority, is not yet clear. Mid-January, Cointelegraph reports that Russian businessman Aleksey Kolesnik would have bought two power plants for future cryptocurrency

Engineers arrested this week were not the first to think about using the former Soviet military spaces for mining. The company Ice Rock Mining plans to organize mining operations in a former Soviet bunker located in a cave in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The company claims the naturally cold temperature of the underground bunker and its location near a hydroelectric power station as part of a cost – effective site ideal for l & # 39; mining.