Firefighters inspect a basement room crammed with Bitcoin servers after putting out a minor fire on Friday. / Courtesy of Gangwon Fire Headquarters |
By Chyung Eun-ju, Park Si-soo
A Bitcoin "mine" in South Korea suffered minor damage on Friday when a fire started in a room crammed with Bitcoin servers, police said Monday.
The fire happened in a basement room of a motel in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, at 12:30 p.m. The fire was extinguished in 10 minutes after burning several servers worth 50,000 won ($46) each.
The room was crammed with hundreds of Bitcoin servers operating with around 300 graphic cards, according to police.
An investigation is under way to find what caused the fire. An overloaded socket is among possible causes.
"The overloaded use of multi-outlet sockets seemed to have caused the fire," an investigator said.