Chinese Mining Centers Fear A Power Outage
The Bureau of industry and trade of Yinjiang, which monitors the protection of consumer rights, issued a warning to the mining farms of Yunnan province to register with the Bureau of electric power industry.
The Bureau also explained that if the requirement is not met, the regulator can turn off the power supply to the mining centers, as users of social networks write:
“BTC-mining centers in Yunnan province under the threat of a new range of compliance checks. Failure to comply will result in disconnection from the power supply.”
The warning was sent after the authorities discovered that mining centers use state-subsidized cheap electricity to mine cryptocurrencies. Also, local authorities note that most of the mining enterprises operate in the gray zone: they can receive an unlimited amount of electricity even without an official legal entity.
China has the largest concentration of computing power of mining farms, and cheap and subsidized electricity is one of the main reasons for the region’s popularity: for example, in Yunnan province, the tariff is only $ 4 per KWh, which is much less than in Europe or the United States.
It is also reported that mining companies have reached the hydroelectric power stations of the region, which allows them to buy electricity for only a few cents per KWh, but the provincial administration has already banned the HPP to provide cheap electricity to mining centers.
As part of the industry regulatory reform, the Yunnan government has decided to introduce new legal requirements for the mining business: the administration wants to see registered legal entities, conduct tax audits, request information on sources of income and regulate the flow of electricity.
In one of the regions of the province, on November 5, the activities of the mining farm were temporarily suspended until it received an official legal name.
The punishment for illegal mining in China can be relatively severe: for example, in October, a Chinese citizen was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for mining bitcoins using the electric power of a railway station. This month in Hunan province also caught the Director of high school, who was mining Ethereum on the territory of the educational institution.
