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China’s campaign against the cryptocurrency industry is now targeting miners who tried to disguise themselves as data researchers and storage facilities to stay in business, according to insiders.
Concern over the country’s power supplies for the upcoming winter season is one reason for the urgency, said the sources.
The new round of scrutiny could further depress the amount of crypto mining occurring in China, which for years had been the dominant player and as recently as April had a 46 percent share of the global hash rate, a measure of computing power used in mining and processing.
In Hebei, which accounts for a small share of the industry, local agencies required companies and institutions to avoid cryptocurrency mining with their computing systems, and asked for a self-compliance check before the end of this month, according to a statement released Wednesday.
A massive expansion of crypto mining would “seriously affect economic and social development and directly threaten national security,” the local internet regulator said in the statement, adding that the power consumption involved in mining is not in line with the country’s emissions-cutting policy.
Meanwhile, Ray Dalio, the founder of US$150 billion (HK$1.17 trillion) Bridgewater Associates, cast doubt on the prediction by Ark Investment Management’s Cathie Wood that Bitcoin could soar to US$500,000 in five years, saying that “doesn’t make sense to me.”
While Wood’s exchange-traded funds bought more bitcoins, the funds sold more Tesla shares, taking the total value of the electric vehicle maker’s stock they have offloaded this month to about US$266 million.
Bloomberg
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