Earlier this year, reports arose that China — once one of the cryptocurrency capitals of the world — was looking to ban Bitcoin mining.
As reported by NewsBTC at the time, the SCMP reported that the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has revealed a draft list of industrial activities the government is interested in restricting or outright banning, which include cryptocurrency mining. With China’s Sichuan region, full of rivers, purportedly housing a large portion of the hash power backing the Bitcoin network, many were quick to take issue with this move.
According to a new document, however, this isn’t China’s plan.
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Bitcoin Mining Still a Safe Activity in China
On Tuesday evening, Chinese cryptocurrency insider Dovey Wan found that the NDRC has eliminated Bitcoin mining from its list of industries to phase out over time. According to a roughly translated version of the article in question, the “consultation paper” that indicated that the NDRC cryptocurrency mining operations due to environmental damage has been “deleted,” implying that there will no longer be a concerted effort to stem the flow of electricity to China’s Bitcoin miners.
BREAKING
6 months ago CT was screaming abt “China banning bitcoin mining” when a fuzzy drafted “guideline” was published by China state planning dept
The official version is out: cryptocurrency mining is removed from the “eliminating category”
The message is so clear here? https://t.co/bA9To59cKJ pic.twitter.com/ynRiTdkKd7
— Dovey 以德服人 Wan ? ? (@DoveyWan) November 6, 2019
While Bitcoin mining seems to be off the list of to-be-banned activities in China, this hasn’t stopped some more regional authorities from taking action.
In September, Wan reported that five departments of governments and regulatory entities in the autonomous region of China Inner Mongolia had begun to crack down on Bitcoin mining enterprises, cloud computing firms, and other operations that deal with data centers and large computing devices.
JUST IN h/t @ChainNewscom
Regulatory bodies from Inner Mongolia will dedicate resources in restricting cryptocurrency mining within the province
Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are where most coal mining are based of. Tho I doubt this will have any impacthttps://t.co/LGmxpRwPeQ
— Dovey 以德服人 Wan ? ? (@DoveyWan) September 14, 2019
Although the Google translation is spotty, the ChainNews article reads that local authorities said in a document that they believe cryptocurrency mining is “unrelated to the real economy”, and should thus not be supported by Inner Mongolia. So, the “Autonomous Region Development and Reform Commission, the Public Security Department, the Office of the Ministry of Industry, the Financial Office, and the Big Data Bureau” are all expected to carry out a “clean up and rectification” process on such firms over the next few months.
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