A Bahia cryptocurrency miner sued the electricity company of the state of Bahia (Coelba) after a power outage at his residence caused damage to his equipment.
As a Neoenergia Group company, Coelba is the third largest electricity distributor in the country by number of customers and sixth by volume of energy supplied, the largest in the north-northeast. In Bahia, its presence is the largest of the cities, where it supplies 415 of the 417 municipalities.
However, a power failure on 25-09-2021 in several districts of the capital of Bahia, including the district where the miner lives, brought him to court.
Cryptocurrency miner claims damage from blackout in Salvador and is suing Coelba
Coelba’s client stated in court that he uses high-capacity computers that are continuously connected to the electricity grid to perform his work (cryptocurrency mining).
But the power outage damaged their equipment. According to the author, the damage occurred on a Video card Zotac NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060Ti Twin Edge OC(WITHOUT LHR), 8GB, GDDR6 – ZT-A30610H-10M, Motherboard Biostar TB250-BTC, Power supply Corsair VS 600W 80Plus White and Intel Pentium G4400 processor.
On October 4, 2021, the customer filed an administrative action requesting reimbursement of amounts for the loss.
Analyzing the case, the company disagreed with the customer’s request, claiming that the power grid is in perfect working order. The miner even presented a technical report showing that the equipment had caught on fire, but the company continued to disagree.
In court, the author claims that he has not mined any cryptocurrencies for a week. As a result, he lost BRL 400.00 per day, approximately 0.0015 ETH, which equates to an estimated loss of BRL 2,800.00.
Judge did not agree with the request for moral damages, but ordered the company to compensate the customer
In the decision, Judge Joselito Rodrigues de Miranda Júnior agreed with the cryptocurrency miner and decided that the energy company should indemnify its customer.
However, he credited the case as merely an annoyance to the client, who disagreed with the request for moral damages. In addition, the company may not pay for the damage suffered, since the plaintiff has not proven the expected profit.
Finally, it was determined that the plaintiff will be reimbursed and the company will have to bear the costs of the proceedings, with the client being reimbursed an interest of 1% per month since the occurrence.
“III – PROVISION In view of the foregoing and everything else in the file, I partially uphold the application to order the defendant concessionaire, COELBA – COMPANHIA DE ELECTRICIDADE DO ESTADO DA BAHIA, to pay compensation for material damage, amounting to BRL 13,979, 98 (thirteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine reais and ninety-eight cents), plus default interest of 1% per month, from the writ and monetary restatement, from the actual loss, per Statement 43 of STJ’s Precedent. Based on the loss of the lawsuit, I order the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings and the attorney’s fees that I mediate at 10% of the amount of the damages determined above.”
Following the ruling, it is not clear whether Coelba intends to appeal, but the case has drawn attention to Brazilian miners.
Source: Live Coins

Barry Siefert is an accomplished journalist and author at The Nation View. He is known for his expertise in the field of cryptocurrency, and has written extensively on the topic. With a background in finance and economics, Barry has a deep understanding of the underlying technology and market forces that drive the crypto industry.