In addition to China being the manufacturer of most of the cryptocurrency mining equipment, it is also the country where more than half of the total bitcoin miners are based. However, with China’s recent ban on ICOs, it is feared that the ban may be intensified to target the Chinese miners as well.
A Chinese miner stated:
“I don’t care about [the] Bitcoin price anymore. There are too many regulatory uncertainties. You know the government always adopts an interventionist approach in its economy. What if the authority one day suddenly announces that it’s illegal to hold coins? Now I just want to sell out all of my miners and ASICs.”
He told the reporters that he is selling his equipment for fear that Beijing may seek to intensify its crackdown on cryptocurrencies.
According to reports, the number of Chinese bitcoin miners liquidating their equipment via second-hand trading platforms is rising. One Wuhan-based miner is selling 50 motherboards at below market value via the Alibaba owned second-hand trading platform, Xianyu. The listing stated that the boards were manufactured in June and used for only two months.
Reports claim that Bitmain, as a precautionary measure, is apparently transferring their mining operations overseas in order to avoid any future regulatory hurdles that may arise in the country. The operations of industrial, as well as retail, mining organizations are also being adversely affected by concerns of the threat of a Chinese crackdown on bitcoin mining.
Chinese media outlet Caixin, on the other hand, recently published an article that declares that the concerns, pertaining to the Chinese government extending the ban to target mining, are baseless. The publication states that the fears regarding a government attack on miners have been claimed as false by an anonymous source that is close to the regulators.
Mr. Fu, a computer hardware merchandiser, also told reporters that he believes the mining industry will continue to flourish in future. He plans on stocking large quantities of GPUs and ASICs.
A mining operator described bitcoin mining as a nascent boom in export industry stating that “domestic [miners]… mostly export to foreign countries, earn[ing] foreign [currency]” that has “to come back into the yuan.” According to the source, bitcoin mining has reaped many benefits for the Chinese economy. The regulations imposed by the Chinese government are an excessive interference.