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China's central bank can limit power supply to miners

02 January 2018 21:00, UTC

The Chinese government has expressed concerns that miners use low cost electricity in a number of regions across the country and thus violate the regular mode of power supply. In this regard, the Central Bank asked local authorities to regulate miners' power usage in order to gradually reduce the production of cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported citing its sources.

Previously, other regulators repeatedly drew their attention to this sector, including the National Development and Reform Commission of the PRC.

China is considered the world leader in the sphere of mining, this country accounts for almost 60% of computing power. In addition, almost a quarter of all world's transactions with cryptocurrencies are made in China.

The Chinese authorities are taking a tough stance on the cryptocurrency market. In early September last year, the Central Bank announced an immediate ban on ICO funding. The government obliged to stop all ongoing campaigns, and the projects owners that had already completed initial coin offering, were obliged to return all funds to investors. A few days later, the regulator banned several domestic crypto exchanges. These decisions led to a sharp drop in the price of bitcoin: two weeks after the first cryptocurrency surpassed the $5000 milestone, it fell by almost 40%.