Anhui Joins Growing List of Chinese Provinces to Ban Bitcoin Mining

The Eastern Chinese province of Anhui has become the latest region in the country to impose a complete ban on Bitcoin mining activities owing to power shortage. The officials said it would help them in easing up acute power shortage issues for the next three years. The number of Bitcoin and crypto mining farms in China have already declined to near zero due to the ongoing crackdown by the authorities that started in late May.

The recent floods in the country that has displaced more than 100,000 people didn’t have any impact on the Bitcoin mining hash rate confirming a majority of miners have left the country. Earlier, these floods resulted in the disruption of several mining farms.

Gansu, the northwestern province of China, also received the notice that Bitcoin mining farms will be shut down.

This year’s crackdown by the Chinese authorities is believed to be the strictest till now as Beijing’s focus on carbon neutrality has intensified.  Although Anhui is not one of the biggest crypto mining hubs in China, the power shortage and Beijing’s call for a crypto sweep have forced the authorities to impose strict measures on mining activities.

Chinese Crypto Crackdown Timeline

Like every bull season, even this year Chinese authorities continued to warn crypto exchanges as well as traders against crypto trading and use. However, things started to take a serious turn towards the end of May when the focus shifted toward eradicating the crypto mining industry.

Inner Mongolia became the first province to put a blanket ban on crypto mining, but it was not out of the blue as the province had failed to meet its carbon emission goals because of the heavy industrial work and mining activities. Sichuan, another crypto mining hub first declared it won’t impose any immediate strict measures when the Inner Mongolia regulations surfaced, but soon after went back on its decision to completely prohibit any mining activity in the region.

China accounted for more than 60% of total crypto mining activities and the recent crackdown had shut down most of the big crypto mining farms resulting in a sharp drop in the BTC network’s horsepower falling over 50% within a month of the crackdown.

The Chinese crackdown on miners is seen as a bullish move for the crypto ecosystem as many experts claim mining farms would relocate to other nations bringing much-needed decentralization in Bitcoin mining. The Bitcoin network hash rate has started to show signs of recovery.