The big environmental stories in the Chinese media (21-27 May)
The Chinese government’s attitude toward cryptocurrency has hardened in the past week.
Vice Premier Liu He declared, at a State Council meeting on financial stability, that the government will crackdown on bitcoin mining and trading.
The announcement sent shockwaves across the cryptocurrency industry. Mining giants Huobi Mall and BTC.TOP immediately said they would suspend bitcoin mining operations inside China “until the policy environment improves”. Huobi Mall also revealed it is exploring options to move its mining facilities overseas.
Besides concerns with financial stability, a major motivation for the crackdown is the industry’s massive energy consumption. In a scathing commentary on STCN, a leading financial outlet, columnist Li Junhui wrote “bitcoin mining is totally inconsistent with China’s carbon peaking target.” The activity consumes a great deal of real world energy to generate virtual tokens of dubious value, she wrote.
Following the central government announcement, authorities in energy-rich provinces, where bitcoin mining predominately takes place, are upgrading their measures against the activity. On Tuesday, 25 May, Inner Mongolia published a draft action plan to rein in bitcoin mining. According to the draft, the province will run energy consumption inspections on industrial parks and data centres to prevent them from leasing facilities to bitcoin mining activities. It will revoke the licences of telecommunication and internet companies found to be involved in cryptocurrency mining. Judicial actions will also be taken against corporate managements for a range of mining-related activities.
The action plan is a follow-up to Inner Mongolia’s policy, set out in March, to phase-out of cryptocurrency mining, after the province failed to meet its 2020 target on energy consumption control. Other provinces are expected to follow suit now the issue has attracted the attention of the top leadership.
(Sources: China Dialogue)
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