Earlier yesterday, Colin Wu, a Chinese reporter focused on crypto, tweeted that numerous miners had confirmed him about the prohibition and shared what seems to be duplicate copies of official order issued to power generators:
Nevertheless, Wu stated that the prohibition was likely based on local “economic interests,” and hopefully not signaling a will to crush crypto mining activity by Beijing:
“There is no need to overestimate the impact of this incident. The attitude of China local power companies towards crypto mining is often changing. It is more a demand for economic interests than political pressure.”
The prohibition seems to have occurred along with a 24-hour decline in worldwide hash rate of about 10% to 125 exahashes per second from 140 exahashes per.
As per data provided by Cambridge University’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (BECI), Yunnan takes the fourth place in the list of China’s provinces contributing to mining hash rate in a big manner, next only to Xinjian, Sichuan and Inner Mongolia as of April 2020.
Yunnan then accounted 5.42% of worldwide hash rate, placing it above all nations with the exceptions being China, the US, Russia and Kazakhstan.
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（Chinese Crypto Reporter） (@WuBlockchain) November 30, 2020
Back in June, as per Wu, Yunnan’s government had directed closure of 64 unauthorized mining facilities, including seven undergoing construction. The government underlined nonpayment of taxes and safety threats, including the manner in which mines were linked to domestic hydropower stations.
Breaking: This Friday night, a fire occurred in a large #Bitcoin mine in Yunnan, China, causing thousands of bitcoin mining machines to be destroyed. The local police were investigating. pic.twitter.com/t33UrVEjmF
— BlockBeats (@BlockBeatsChina) June 14, 2020
Furthermore, in the same month, there was a fire accident in a domestic Bitcoin mining facility, causing burning of thousands of units. The mid-year clamp down began after a blowup at Yunnan based hydropower station on May 29, resulting in a loss of six lives and wounding five.
The blast is perceived as the reason behind stringent enforcement of security criteria regarding hydropower plants in the zone.
Back in April, Yunnan’s state grid also disbursed a document cautioning electricity producers against the illegal routing of power to Bitcoin mining centres.