Bitcoin Forum

Saw this first thing when I opened my browser. http://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/news/bitcoin-miners-ditch-china-as-crackdown-on-cryptocurrencies-continues-2018-1-1012533774


OK, we all know China is trying to make its own digital fiat and we kinda expected it would clamp down on competition. Do you think mining would still remain stable? I mean, there are probably miners there that might not be able afford to quickly move out. Would this be for the better (mining become more widely spread out) or can this cause transactions to come to a halt?

Bitcoin could take a big hit in terms of decrease of the hashrate and it would still remain perfectly safe. It's easily assumable so I wouldn't bother if there is a decrease in hashrate while chinese minners allocate their gear somewhere else.

This ultimately is good. It's obvious chinese miners had an unfair advantage due their cheap electricity costs, now they will need to compete with realistic electricity bills like the rest of the world. It also helps decentralize the bulk of the mining out of the chinese territory. We need mining in as many different jurisdictions as possible.

Already,bitcoin transactions are not getting confirmed quickly and transaction fee is also very high.Now china has decided to gradually ask miners to stop mining bitcoins.This would make the situation much worse for atleast temporarily.Bitcoin miners have no other option than shifting their mining firm s to other countries.

Long term it's probably for the better, more competition in any market is almost always beneficial, and certainly in an environment such as bitcoin where resources are scarce. Short term it could cause some chaos as mining rate reduces.

This might look like an attack on bitcoin and crypto.

There's an alternate explanation for it. China is taking steps to ensure capital stays inside its borders. Bitcoin is one method of extracting capital in china to other nations, across china's borders. That could be one real motivation and reasoning behind these crackdowns on ICO's, exchanges, etc. There are more detailed pieces on this topic which can be found via search engine for those interested.


Very good point ^. (I was going to say that)

Chinese miners often have access to hydroelectric power, which is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than coal. This gave chinese miners a HUGE advantage over their competition in the US and elsewhere. With that advantage removed, mining might actually become profitable again and like cellard said, the mining aspect of crypto could become less centralized across china.

Also china's energy market being more deregulated & having fewer laws relating to energy production being clean or ethical makes electricity cheaper there too if I'm not mistaken.

The difficulty is adjusted every two weeks. So miners shutting down (extreme case) would not really have an impact (other than temporary) on confirmations. The problem of high transaction fees and long confirmation times is structural - you shouldn't think of events like this as causing these problems. Unless a scaling solution is implemented, these problems will continue.

I think mining would still remain stable even if Chinese stops mining. It might be better as they won't be the ones with the biggest has power anymore and the hash power of btc would be more diversified causing it to be more decentralized. It won't make transactions halt but I am sure it would temporarily slow down but in the long run it will recover the lost hash power.

I just see this as history repeating itself, for a long time China has tried to isolate itself from the world and all those attempts have always failed, we may have more advanced technology but humans are the same, they are trying to isolate themselves once again, like with the great firewall the equivalent of the great wall, and now they are banning new technology if they keep following this path china is going to collapse again.

The Chinese government clearly wants to control as much as they can. They've done so since the beginning, especially when it comes to technology. Their bans on certain websites are just examples of this same behavior. If the miners are able to move out of China cleanly, then I think mining has the chance to remain stable. Japan could be the new home of these many miners. I think the prominent miners will be able to quickly move out just because of the Bitcoin surges. Their worth had to have gone up as we approached 16k. Mining being more widely spread out, as far as I know, isn't any different from if it were central to a certain place in terms of transaction fees and confirmation times. I doubt transactions will come to a halt any time soon.

Most miners fleeing China will likely move to Russia, because they have still one of the cheapest energy costs and also areas with a very cold temperature. The total mining capacity will surely not decrease and it will not have any impact on confirming transactions.

On top of that, miners have already been playing with Bitcoin by activating and halting hash power, resulting in 25% difficulty swings, which on their turn result in average confirmation times having stretched out to 15 minutes per block. It's all speculation, but the suspicion goes in the direction of those who support BCH. I constantly see the Jihan cartel refer to Bitcoin becoming slower and slower, and they are doing their best to make sure it gets slower, shady bastards. With this they are also impacting their own operations as blocks take longer to come through....

This does not look good as we all know the majority of miners are in China.
Remember what happened to the price when they banned all exchanges in China during the later half of the summer?
That will happen again when the miners completely shut down there.
And I think this is what the PBoC sleeping in the same bed as the Chinese government exactly want to happen because they see bitcoin as a really big threat to their economy and are looking for their own way to manipulate bitcoin's technology as in the blockchain to have the upper hand on the world's global economy and how it can benefit their own countries concerns the most.
The other countries can go to hell is all they would care about anyway this turns out. They want to be on top.

It could be a rough transition and yes, transactions can halt to a grind. I would still prefer that happening though rather than keep all the mines there. Having it spread out means less likely that they'd all get shut down by a government, especially that even in Asia the reception differs. Also reduces the influence of any single government on the price. Like, who else remembers when China closed down exchanges?

For the time being this is really bad news. As transaction fees area at an all time sometimes reaching 30 usd. Moreover, transaction time will reach 10 minutes. Eventually hash power (2/3rds of it btw) will get distributed but as they will be mining in normal electricity costs this doesn't bode well for transaction fees in long term.

I was really surprised how wise is China government because they allow their people to mine and earn good income, but it looks like it came to an end. Really sad...

I'm interested to know what that would do to the price of Bitcoin. Out of disasters there's always opportunity.

Yeah, i use china multipool... Its sad becourse bitcoin is big industry out there and world`s biggest pools are in Asia.  :(

Another attack on bitcoin by Chinese regulatory authority and I am very sure the major aim is to manipulate cryptocurrency in future and we should not be discouraged about it because mining can be done from any were around the world. Bitcoin and others cryptocurrency has come to stay and no governments can exterminate it. I will advice miner to change location for time being in other to take decisions on how to come back in grand stile when Chinese government began to allow bitcoin to strive.

Since crypto currency was boom by the last quarter of 2017, potential growth of the market will be enormous and potential traffic too. Miners move out of china will provide them more profit in other country, also it will be an addition to the faster transaction which blockchain can create specially the help of a massive population of miners in China.

    Whoa, this clearly is bad news if you really think about it. I have said this because most of the miners thatake good profits are from china. This is because almost everything there is cheaper than most of the countries im the world. And if this continues, we might see even bigger numbers of miners leaving china or completely abandoning mining. This will never be good for crypto people in china. Tsk tsk...

I can see it, moreover, many projects cryptocurrency of China that appear to the world success.I think they want to control this digital currency

This shift in policy really baffles me. I get the ICO ban and exchange ban. China has a capital outflow problem, as everyone already knows, so it makes sense for China to plug those holes. They simply don't want Chinese people to give their money to foreign companies. Mining is different though. Miners basically generate money, so doesn't that bring money in? It would make sense if majority of miners in China are foreign, but aren't they pretty much all Chinese? Doesn't this move actually hurt them? I would appreciate someone shedding some light on this.

I don't think this matters much in the grand scheme of things though, and it's only going to cause a two week backlog at most. It's even a good thing for the hashrate to not be as concentrated in China. It's just baffling though.

Last month, China banned mainland residents from trading in cryptocurrencies on exchanges and made it illegal for Chinese start-ups to raise funds via initial coin offerings. a hybrid of crowdfunding, venture capital, and initial public offerings, to put it simply. Bitcoin prices fell. Ether prices fell. And then cryptocurrency start-ups shook it all off. It was as if they were punched in the face, shook the cobwebs out of their head, and remembered that this whole blockchain thing is decentralized and autonomous. That's the point. Banned in one country, move to another.

From what i know miners in china play a significant role in the bitcoin network,if all of them shutdown all at once we might see a huge delay again in the transactions and fees will back in an abnormal state.

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Moving out and and finding a new place to put the factory is not an easy task to do, businessmen who owns the miner rigs will be looking for cheap electricity on some part of the world which is not so easy and some other aspect that they would benefit from the location.

This will surely be a huge blow to bitcoin and among other its users, we can only hope for the good and once again the fees will head straight "to the moon".

It's not easy task but they will find the way. This is too big profit for them just to let this go so simple and give up.
Also I don't think they will shut down at once but gradualy move their farms for better conditions. And somehow I think that behind this stands a much more complex story than it looks at first glance. Why wouldn't China give up such profit, it doesn't make sense?

I literally don't think that it's gonna affect anything for the bitcoins but it will affect China for sure in the future if they decided to adopt bitcoins or any other cryptocurrency then there will be a problem that they would be facing.

They will have no OWN MINERS which are skilled in everything and then , they will lack behind .. I do think that sooner or later every country is gonna adopt some digital currency and this is exactly what happenes when you use a narrow minded thinking.

They are just letting potentially intelligent people who are in this stuff go from their country shifting their man power somewhere else.

Are you sure of what you are saying, cause the way I’m seeing things, China is just no longer interested in cryptocurrencies and wants to kick it out from their country completely. I don’t see any other reason that will make miners run out from the country, if not for the way they see things.

And now it happened on Korea, people, this is all a HUGE fud, you need to understand that! Please, open your eyes! a lot of people have already fall in this huge fud and they all sold their bitcoins because of that. Just be patient, bitcoin can still keep going up, only that it is full of fud.

Miners cannot abandon mining, if they can be profitable in other countries why are they going to stop mining and if they cannot be profitable in these new circumstances it is not like they are leaving mining behind they are just unable to compete and are going to face bankruptcy, but with the block reward still being high and the huge fees I bet they are still going to be profitable even with more expensive electricity costs.

I'm sure transactions will continue, though it will be greatly slowed down until these Chinese miners relocated and start up their mining operations once again.