Harvard University runs a massive supercomputing cluster called Odyssey. With this vast farm of computer servers, budding academics can simulate the mysterious workings of the human brain or design brand new materials for generating clean energy. But that’s not all. They can also use it get rich on digital currency.

Or at least, that was case until last week, when the university booted one of its researchers from the computer network for trying to create a fortune using the dogecoin, a digital currency in the vein of the more popular bitcoin.

Dogecoin is one of dozens of new cryptocurrencies modeled after bitcoin. It began as a lark, a play off the doge internet meme. But like bitcoin, it can be converted into cold hard cash, and that’s an attractive thing. One way to get your hands on this digital currency is to “mine” it. Like bitcoin, the dogecoin system runs across a large network of computers, and if you contribute processing power to the system, you’re rewarded with dogecoins.

Unlike bitcoin, which is very competitively mined by special purpose processors, dogecoin can still be mined with a general purpose CPU. With a single dogecoin worth only about a tenth of a penny, however, it takes a lot of mining computers — and electricity — to make any serious cash. But that wasn’t a problem for our intrepid Harvard researcher, who has not been identified.

The rub was that dogecoin mining causes a computer’s central processing unit to jump into overdrive and that kind of non-stop chip-chugging eventually got noticed by the powers-that-be at Harvard.

James Cuff, Harvard’s assistant dean for research computing, says that the get-rich-quick researcher was permanently booted from the network. “[A]ny activities using our shared resources for any non scientific purpose that results or does not actually result in personal gain are also clearly and explicitly denied,” he wrote in an email sent to Odyssey users last Friday. “Don’t let this happen to you.”

Cuff couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. But according to the Harvard Crimson, which first reported the story, the researcher could have made hundreds or even thousands of dollars from the mining operation.

It’s not clear how big Odyssey is today, but it had over 4,000 CPU cores when it was launched in 2008. Not a bad mining rig, especially if you’re not paying for it.