Recent reports indicate that electricity generating companies in Boashan ( which is in the Chinese province of Yunnan ) have been ordered by the Chinese authorities to stop supplying electricity to the city’s miners.
Recall that a reasonable quantity of the cryptocurrency mined by the Chinese is used largely for the payment of expenses especially electricity bills.
A Chinese crypto reporter Colin Wu tweeted that he had received reports from several miners concerning the ban. He said they shared copies of official documents that had been issued to electricity companies concerning the restriction of power to the miners.
Several miners told Wu that Baoshan, Yunnan, where China’s crypto mines are located, received a ban on November 30, requiring the power station to stop supplying power to the miners. Yunnan is the third largest mining place in China after Sichuan and Xinjiang. pic.twitter.com/1zAhcTLmXi
— Wu Blockchain
Yunnan is believed to be the third largest crypto mining site in China behind Xinjiang, Sichuan and Inner Mongolia.
However, Wu noted that the power cut is not necessarily a move to stop mining, but it is probably with the intent of prioritizing ‘economic interests’.
Earlier this year, Wu reported that the government of Yunnan had ordered the shut down of more than sixty unauthorized mining operations. The government’s reasons were tax evasion and security risks and the linking of mines to local hydropower stations.
In April, Yunnan’s state grid also warned electricity producers against the unauthorized diversion of power to bitcoin mines. Considering how power intensive bitcoin mining is, government’s scrutinizing of electricity delivered to miners isn’t much of a surprise.
