Ya’an, a prefecture-level city in the Sichuan province, has become the latest region to experience China’s growing ban on cryptocurrency mining.
The Chinese city has a significant amount of hydropower that crypto miners were quick to make use of. Now, however, Ya’an’s officials have begun banning crypto mining farms following the lead of the Chinese government. Ya’an became one of the major mining hubs in the Sichuan province which makes up as much as 10% of the world’s bitcoin mining.
Local authorities are getting to work in Ya’an
According to Bloomberg, during a meeting on Thursday, government officials from Ya’an pledged to cease the operations of all Bitcoin mining farms in use within their jurisdiction. Miners still operating in the area will be given notifications by power suppliers that their power plants will be closed until further notice.
The halt of operations is to run through self-inspections in the wake of the government meeting. The announcement required that all power plants in the region go dark before 22:00 local time, and it has yet to be determined when they will be allowed to resume operations. Additionally, mines have been told to shut down no later than June 25 which includes the consumption of electricity and the abandonment of using hydropower.
Sichuan, along with Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang Qinghai and Yunnan have all recently introduced regulatory policies for mining cryptocurrency. Up until this point, Sichuan was the only region yet to implement the requirements. The report suggests that Ya’an made up more than 10% of the total computing power of bitcoin mining in Sichuan.
According to a tweet by Chinese crypto blogger Colin Wu, “Bitcoin mining in Sichuan, China is being shut down one after another. Miners believe that Sichuan’s restrictive policies will be introduced soon. Ethereum’s hashrate fell by 7%, Bitcoin’s hashrate is temporarily not reflected.” A follow-up post stated that a large amount of hydropower in Sichuan is not used in the summer months and therefore, without bitcoin mining, would all go to waste.
The driving force behind China’s growing bans on cryptocurrency mining can be traced back to a speech given by President Xi Jinping at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly in February. In the address, Jinping declared that China will have CO2 emission peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
This would be a massive accomplishment, but experts are skeptical China can pull it off. To help reach this goal, China has quickly turned its attention to crypto miners and the massive amount of energy used in the endeavor.