The government paid him well for every coin of crypto he did not mine. The more crypto he did not mine, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new GPUs to increase the amount of crypto he did not mine. Major Major's father worked without rest at not mining crypto.
That’s actually the joke. The book Catch-22 has a story about Major Major ( rank, name) whose father scammed the government for corn subsidies by not farming.