China's Anhui, Henan and Gansu provinces have also begun shutting down Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency miners in their territories, citing concerns about energy costs.
The provincial governments of Anhui, Henan and Gansu have joined the regulatory controls that China has been exerting on the crypto industry in recent months. According to the authorities' reports, these provinces have told Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency miners to stop their mining operations. The measures seek to minimize energy consumption, in order to reduce potential environmental damage.
Anhui Provincial Government reported The province announced on a website that the closure of the bitcoin miners is being done to protect the electrical system in the region and guarantee supply to the populations. According to the province, in the next 3 years Anhui will present an imminent energy deficit, so it made the decision to close and “cleanse” the province of cryptocurrency miners as a way to minimize the difficulties that await it.
On the other hand, crypto blogger Wu Blockchain reported via his Twitter that the provincial governments of Henan and Gansu took similar action against Bitcoin miners, after receiving a request from the State Grid Corporation of China, the corporation that manages much of the electricity in the country. According to Wu, the provinces received a notice ordering the closure of crypto mining facilities.
With Anhui, Henan and Gansu, China now has a total of eight provinces where bitcoin and other cryptocurrency mining is banned. Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan are the other Chinese provinces that have banned cryptocurrency mining.
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Crackdown on the crypto industry
China's heavy crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry in general has led to major declines for the market. Bitcoin, the main cryptocurrency in the market, and the one most attacked by the Chinese government, is hovering around $33.000 per unit. Its value, after having exceeded 64.800 dollars in mid-April, has fallen considerably since the new regulatory measures in the country began to be announced.
Many of the bitcoin miners, installed in the provinces of the Asian nation that now prohibit this activity, have had to disconnect their equipment to move to other regions or even to leave the country permanently, making the hash rate of the network is also affected. At the time of this edition, Bitcoin's computing power is 95,9 PE/s.
Iran and Canada join the regulations
As an reported Bit2Me News, the Iranian government has asked Bitcoin and cryptocurrency miners to close their operations in the country, regardless of whether they have licenses to legally mine. The reason is that the Middle Eastern nation has suffered constant power outages, which even left the Ministry of Labor facilities without electricity for several hours.
Iran believes that the constant power outages are due to the amount of energy consumed by cryptocurrency mining, in addition to the uncontrolled and illegal mining activity of these assets in the country.
Meanwhile, the province of Quebec, located in Canada, is also tightening its regulations for cryptocurrency mining activity. Quebec is limiting the amount of energy supplied to crypto mining farms, so the opportunities for growth and development for those engaged in this activity are now reduced. Bitfarms, one of the largest bitcoin miners, which operates from this province, has said that it will look for options to expand its services in other regions of the country, although it has no plans to leave Quebec.
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