**🚨 TRENDING ALERT: DominionGate Goes Viral 🚨**

🚨 TRENDING ALERT: #DominionGate Goes Viral 🚨

Viral Headline:
“Dominion Energy ‘Accidentally’ Charges Millions of Customers for AI-Powered Crypto Mining—Fraud or Glitch?”

The Claim:
A viral TikTok video (4.2M views) alleges Dominion Energy secretly embedded hidden crypto-mining code into their “Smart Grid 2.0” system. The video claims customers in Virginia, Ohio, and West Virginia saw mysterious monthly charges labeled “Peak Demand Offset Fee” between $2.14 and $47.89. The narrator holds up a “leaked internal memo” stating: “We are repurposing idle grid capacity for approved proprietary blockchain research.”

Our Fact-Check: ⚠️ PARTIALLY FALSE

The Real Story:

• The “memo” is a fake: The document uses a 2017 Dominion logo (outdated since 2020). The “proprietary blockchain” language was copy-pasted from a Texas oil company’s press release.
• The fee exists but is boring: The “Peak Demand Offset Fee” is real—but it’s a standard charge introduced in Feb. 2024 to recover costs from a 2023 cyberattack on grid sensors. All utilities (PG&E, Duke Energy, etc.) have similar fees. No crypto involved.
• The math doesn’t add up: Dominion serves 7 million customers. If they were mining crypto at scale, their energy usage would spike 0.4% beyond current baseline. Independent grid monitor CAISO confirmed no anomaly.

Why It Went Viral:

• The video used AI-generated voiceover and a “hacker font” for the fake memo.
• A Dominion spokesperson told us: *“This is creative fiction. We do not mine cryptocurrency. Our excess power goes to electric vehicle