New York student Jerry Yu owns $6 million Texas crypto mine

New lawsuits have revealed that a Chinese national is the majority owner of a cryptocurrency mining facility in the Texas panhandle that has allegedly funneled money from China to the United States, according to a report from the New York Times.

Also an American citizen and New York University student, Jerry Yu, 23, bought the Bitcoin mining facility in Channing, Texas, for $6 million and allegedly used it to transfer money to the U.S. without the government taking notice, the report claims.

Yu bought the mining facility — BytesRush — using cryptocurrency, which offered anonymity on the purchase and avoided the banking system and regulations. Yu also purchased an $8 million Manhattan condo from a former General Electric executive. 

The lawsuits filed by contractors who worked on the facility allege the cryptocurrency is being transferred to investors that “are not only Chinese citizens, but citizens in highly political and influential business positions.” The New York Times reported that the Bitcoin mining facilty is equipped with some 6,000 specialized computers to mine and track cryptocurrency, which is worth more than $40,000 per coin as of December 26.

The mining facility is also believed to have quite the demand on Texas’ power grid. In summer 2022, a report said that one Texas crypto mining facility returned 11,717 megawatt hours to the grid in July by temporarily ceasing operations and were paid $9 million as part of a Texas energy program.