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Man faces arrest over alleged crypto mine hidden under a school

February 24, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Arrest

A former facilities worker in the U.S. state of Massachusetts is alleged to have stolen nearly $18,000 worth of electricity to run 11 miners in a school’s crawl space.

A former facilities worker who allegedly set up a secret cryptocurrency mining operation inside a Massachusetts school’s crawl space is due for arrest after missing a scheduled court hearing to answer to charges.

Nadeam Nahas was scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 23 facing charges of vandalizing a school and fraudulent use of electricity, according to media reports.

JUST IN: an ex-town employee is accused of running a "Cryptocurrency mining operation" out of Cohasset High School. pic.twitter.com/cdBlMIxnnH
— whalechart (@WhaleChart) February 24, 2023

A default warrant is a type if warrant issued by courts when a person fails to appear in court or comply with an order, and authorizes law enforcement officers to arrest the person.

Nahas, who is said to have previously worked in the facilities department for the town of Cohasset, Massachusetts, United States, is alleged to have stolen electricity worth almost $18,000 in order to power his crypto mining operation in 2021, between April 28 and Dec. 14.

Court documents show the town calculated Nahas - of Norwell (he worked for the town of Cohasset in the facilities dept) allegedly stole $17,492.57 worth electricity as the computers did their work 24/7 near the boiler room in the basement. It was discovered 12-14-21.
— Jonathan Hall (@JHall7news) February 23, 2023

Local police were reportedly initially informed about the operation in December 2021 after Cohasset’s facilities director noticed computers, wiring and ductwork that seemed out of place given they were in a crawl space near the school’s boiler room.

A total of 11 computers were found there, and Nahas was identified as a suspect after a three-month investigation.

Nahas resigned from his position with the town of Cohasset in March.

It is certainly not the first time someone has been charged with stealing electricity in order to mine cryptocurrency.

In July 2021, Malaysian officials destroyed $1.2 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) mining rigs that were confiscated from residents who were stealing electricity to mine.

A year prior, in August 2020, Bulgarian authorities arrested two men for illegally siphoning off more than $1.5 million in electricity to operate two crypto mining farms.

One of the largest US colleges has begun teaching students about Bitcoin

January 15, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Protocol

The professor said a “Programming Bitcoin” course will follow the first Bitcoin course, where students will learn how to “build a Bitcoin library from scratch.”

Classroom adoption of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency courses continue to skyrocket, with Texas A&M now being the latest U.S. College to offer a Bitcoin course to some of its 74,000+ students.

The news was announced on Jan. 13 by Associate Professor Korok Ray of Mays Business School at Texas A&M, who will be teaching the “Bitcoin Protocol” course to students in the College of Engineering and Mays Business School when the Spring Semester starts on Jan. 17.

I will be teaching the first ever Bitcoin class at Texas A&M this spring!
— Korok Ray (@KorokRay) January 12, 2023

Ray stated in the 4-part Twitter thread that “Programming Bitcoin” will follow Bitcoin Protocol, where students will learn to “build a Bitcoin library from scratch.”

The professor added that it was no easy feat to receive approval from the school’s relevant curriculum committee body, which came on the back of “months” of hard work.

It took months to get this class approved, but we made it! Getting Bitcoin into the curriculum is important for the long game.
— Korok Ray (@KorokRay) January 12, 2023

A lack of high-quality crypto education has been dubbed as a key roadblock in taking adoption to the next level, according to crypto researcher Josh Cowell, who suggested that it can improve upon one's financial literacy if done correctly.

Cointelegraph reached out to Ray to ask how many students signed up to the class but did not receive an immediate response.

Legal and regulatory implications of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies are now being taught at U.S. colleges too.

Adjunct Professor Thomas Hook of University of Boston Law School recently told Cointelegraph that the law school now offers a “Crypto Regulation” course for students interested in learning how crypto-versed lawyers and crypto companies can best navigate through regulatory uncertainties as they look to take their products and services to market:

“It’s meant to expose future lawyers on the potential issues they may see and the myriad of approaches and regulations that exist as it pertains to crypto [and] the different [issues] that crypto companies may face across the globe.”

Other universities now offering cryptocurrency courses include Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford University, National University of Singapore, Cornell University and University of California Berkeley.

Nigerian secondary school will accept crypto payments despite regulatory uncertainty

June 25, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Adoption

"We believe one day digital money will gain more acceptance than paper money,” said school director Sabi’u Musa Haruna.

A private secondary school based near the Nigerian city of Kano has announced it will be accepting payments for school fees in cryptocurrency amid the country’s central bank banning financial institutions providing services to crypto exchanges.

According to a Thursday report from local news outlet Kano Focus, the director of the New Oxford Science Academy in the Kano suburb of Chiranchi will allow students to pay for tuition fees in crypto. Sabi’u Musa Haruna, who started working at the school in 2017, urged the Nigerian government to embrace and regulate cryptocurrency, but seemed to imply he would not wait with this latest move.

“We’ve decided to accept cryptocurrency as school fees, because the world today is tilting towards the system,” said Haruna. “We believe one day digital money will gain more acceptance than paper money.”

Haruna cited the examples of countries like El Salvador and Tanzania expanding payment options for crypto users. The Latin American nation will begin to accept Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender across the country starting on Sept. 7 following the passage of a pro-crypto bill. Across the glo Tanzania’s central bank announced today it had begun working on directives from the government that could eventually overturn the country’s ban on crypto.

The school director did not explicitly say which tokens would be accepted for payment. However, public interest for Bitcoin in Nigeria has often been stronger than that in other countries — according to data from Google Trends, the African country ranks first among searches for BTC, with Austria, Turkey, and Switzerland in a close race for second.

In February, the Central Bank of Nigeria announced in a circular that it had banned regulated financial institutions in the country from providing services to crypto exchanges. Though the policy warned of "severe regulatory sanctions" for any bank that failed to close accounts belonging to exchanges, governor Godwin Emefiele clarified in March that the ban was intended to “prohibit transactions on cryptocurrencies in the banking sector” rather than discourage individuals from dealing in digital assets.

Many lawmakers and people connected to Nigeria’s central bank have been pushing pro-crypto messages in the months following the ban. Emefiele said in May that “digital currency will come to life even in Nigeria” while the central bank later announced plans to launch a CBDC by 2022.

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