They didn't do anything useful before being crushed. Destroying them is a net gain as they cant waste electricity any more.

>They didn't do anything useful before being crushed.

That's your assessment, which doesn't really matter as long as there's still demand for mining ASICs. If that's the case it really is a waste because destroying them will just cause the demand to be satisfied via newly produced ASICs instead

That assumes that demand is constant. Their hope is that frequent images of mining ASICs being steamrolled will reduce demand.

Will it? ASICs seem to be totally legal there (and most other places in the world). The part that was illegal was stealing electricity. "Hoping" that "frequent images of mining ASICs being steamrolled will reduce demand" is wishful thinking at best.

A waste of what?

These were ASIC computers which were stealing electricity, all they can do is mine crypto, so what else are they good for except getting squashed?

Bulldozing makes it harder to recycle. This also decreases supply of miners (though perhaps not materially) making it more expensive to mine, raising the price of Bitcoin, creating more incentive for electricity theft.

>This also decreases supply of miners (though perhaps not materially) making it more expensive to mine

Only in the short term. Difficulty adjustment makes the total mining power irrelevant over the long run.

"raising the price of Bitcoin"

Get back to me when that happens