Bitcoin miners exit China, beat a path to the U.S. as crypto climate shifts [View all]

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Bitcoin miners exit China, beat a path to the U.S. as crypto climate shifts

By Gerry Shih
June 17, 2021 at 4:55 p.m. EDT

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Today, Jiang, a fast-talking 36-year-old, is winding down in China. He and several Chinese investors — some who became billionaires off bitcoin mining — are considering shipping their equipment to Texas and Tennessee.

China’s bitcoin moguls are coming to America.

For years, Chinese miners like Jiang were enabled by the glut of cheap — and often dirty — electricity in China, where a massive fleet of coal-fired plants and hydroelectric dams fueled the country’s rise into an industrial behemoth. At their height in 2018, China’s bitcoin prospectors accounted for 74 percent of the world’s bitcoin production.

But this year, Chinese authorities are cracking down on cryptocurrency to dial back energy consumption and meet their climate goals, sending miners scattering. And increasingly, miners are decamping for places like Texas, South Dakota or Canada, launching a mass migration with implications for the evolving industry and the new communities that will house it.

There also are questions about how much local energy grids can handle.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/bitcoin-mining-china-crypto-america/2021/06/17/0a39c3a8-c903-11eb-8708-64991f2acf28_story.html