Is this man the reason behind Chinese Crypto Mining Ban?

The exclusive update on the arrest of  Xiao Yi, the former party member and vice chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, took a completely different angle with raging speculations about the senior official allegedly being one of the core reasons for the ban on crypto mining by the Chinese central government. An investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission, together with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, revealed the “serious violations of discipline and law” by Xiao Yi, which included illicit encouragement and enabling of crypto mining businesses in the nation.

According to a recent tweet by Chinese Journalist, Colin Wu, Xiao Yi was arrested for abusing his power to introduce and support enterprises to engage in virtual currency mining activities that did not meet the requirements of national industrial policies. However, the most shocking aspect was revealed with industry speculations highlighting the dispute between the company he supported and the genesis mining dispute, which in turn triggered the beginning of the crypto mining ban in China.

Chinese government’s Crypto Mining Crackdown

Amid the Cryptocurrency Ban in China, the authoritarian government has targeted crypto mining businesses since the beginning of the crypto crackdown. In the month of October, the Central Bank of China issued the updated set of crypto ban guidelines, that deemed all crypto-related transactions illegal, further ordering authorities to actively shut down small and medium mining operations, centered in homes and rural provinces.

From adding crypto mining to the “Negative List” of industries and tracking of IP addresses to filter out illicit crypto mining activities in the country, to shutting down unregistered mining farms along with coercing registered giants to step down and comply with the authorities, the Chinese Government has laid out a tightly knit web to clamp down and eventually vanish crypto mining from the nation. Last month, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, Ant Pool gave in to the regulatory crackdown and announced blocking IP access in mainland China, which came in effect from 15th October.