So if I flip burgers and buy BTC, I'm indirectly mining BTC? (Minimum wage paycheck) => (BTC), voila?
Some twisted thinking, but K.
The vast majority of altcoins don't even have altcoin X / USD pairs. You are forced through BTC first to cash them out. It's not that big of a step, or so twisted.
By your logic, everyone buying BTC is "indirectly mining" BTC. By the same logic, miners selling their mined BTC are "indirectly mining" USD. Because they wouldn't mine BTC if they couldn't sell it for USD.
So ya, twisted.
TL;DR: There is no such thing as free electricity. Unless by "free," you mean "steal without getting caught."
Well someone is mining with those GPUs and it ain't the Chinese...
Well ya, people like you, who think that stolen = free. Mind you, I have nothing against theft, just don't want you to misunderstand what it is that you are doing. Electricity is free to you, but your mom, your landlord, or the people around you have to pay for it.
So mining on "free" electricity is no different than starting a toilet paper business, because you can get free toilet paper from your school's toilets.
P.S. Don't.
I can explain to you cases that 80 and 90 % discounts are perfectly legal. My friend rented on floor of an office building then sublet it to a printing business he kept 2 small rooms about 10 to 15 % of the floor. The sublet has the printing guy paying 80% of the 13 cent a kwatt power bill.
My friend has had the lease for 15 to 16 years. He usually got a 1000 a month power bill that was paid 800 printer 200 him.
He got screwed on the deal for 11 years as the real power split should have been 910 to 90 the printer used more gear and more ac in the summer. Since my friend was getting the rent at 80% which was correct he never bother to say the power should be 90-10.
bitcoin came along now the bill was 1150 that is now paid 920 - 230.
So he is not stealing but paying 30 bucks for 150 worth of power.
So we first mined s-1's then mined s-3's now mine s-7's perfectly legal and not stealing.
Your friend sets up a lease to sublet 90% of the space, making the sublessor responsible for 80 (rather than the due 90) percent of the power bill? So he keeps getting screwed (because he was his own realtor and his own lawyer?) for 11 years, until he figures out how to screw the printer back? And the printer doesn't revisit the terms of the lease because, presumably, he's as clueless as your friend? K.
How about this equally common and plausible scenario: My friend robs the printer blind, but turns out it's totally cool -- the printer won't call the cops, because robbed a bank before becoming a printer.
Weird people ...doing weird shit to each other.
TL;DR: look for better friends.