Bitcoin Forum

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) revealed its intent to eliminate the bitcoin and crypto mining sector immediately in its guidance for adjustments to industrial structure published on April 1.

The list of sectors that will be encouraged, restricted and eliminated will undergo a public consultation period until May 7 according to the report of SCMP, and as such, mining facilities in China are likely to be able to operate throughout the next month or two.

If after the public consultation phase the NDRC and the government of China move forward with the current plans to shut down the bitcoin and crypto mining sector, it would signal the end of the most dominant bitcoin mining region.
Why It Could be Good For Bitcoin and Crypto

The potential imposition of a ban on crypto mining may lead to the decentralization of mining across the global mining market and encourage miners based in China to move to foreign countries.

“Bitcoin mining will no longer be dominated by China but become more decentralized,” a Beijing-based cryptocurrency research company analyst Michael Zhong told SCMP, emphasizing that Chinese miners in Yunnan and Sichuan would have to leave.

For many years, major mining pools based in China in the likes of BTC.com and Antpool, some of which are operated by Bitmain, have had dominance over the hash power of the Bitcoin network.

As a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain protocol, the Bitcoin network needs computing power to verify transactions and broadcast data to the Bitcoin blockchain network.

As of April 9, BTC.com and Antpool alone have over 31.5 percent of the hash power of the Bitcoin network, both of which are subsidiaries of Bitmain.

CCN | https://www.ccn.com/chinas-bitcoin-mining-ban-plan-good

Of course, the decision of the Chinese regulator was quite predictable. There may be several reasons for this, but it seems to me that 2 reasons can be considered as the main ones. 1 reason - this is the plan of the Chinese government for the expansion of the yuan in the global economy. China has long dreamed of making the yuan a world currency, and it is possible that Bitcoin will be able to prevent this. Despite the fact that the main part of miners is located in China, the bitcoin, unlike the yuan, is not affected by the Chinese regulator. And it bothers them. 2 reason - because of bitcoin, the shadow economy can grow and the withdrawal of money abroad. This is also a fairly significant factor, which can not be disturbed.

Same owners of different machines, just outsourced into different countries doesn't mean decentralization at its core. For all we know, it will just be one company who would be owning all of these miners and they're just being relocated to a new home. The mining conditions in China are suitably well for operators, that's why it has become the center for the mining industry. With their miners being relocated into somewhere else, with the same owners and operators, I don't think that changes the scenario even in the slightest form.

I think I will not ready to accept it right now because the chances of mining will not been possible in in these countries to develop their economy that's why they are not accepting it but mining is always giving you to the profit but is Chinese not accept it we cannot make their decision to change.

They would leave but there are still tons of large scale miners out there.

I don't necessarily think that this regulation will necessarily lead to a more decentralized bitcoin mining environment, given the fact that you can't just look at centralization from how much hashpower a country has but how much influence individual corporations have as well, regardless of their country of origin.

But that said, I wouldn't say that this is something that is that negative either. People have been after all expecting this to happen sooner or later, and it was pretty much confirmed during 2017. This is just an extension of that, nothing more.

It's incredibly hard to get money to exit the Chinese borders, and Bitcoin hasn't changed much about it at all. Instead, it allowed Chinese manufacturers of mining equipment to have money enter China instead of leaving it.

I read about how Bitcoin's price within the OTC market in China comes with a mild premium, while usually these premiums within the western OTC market are discounts. These Chinese OTC premiums are the direct result of how difficult it is to get money to exit the system, therefore people are ready to pay that premium. Owning Bitcoin offers people the freedom they need to send it to foreign exchanges and trade their way up. Bitcoin 'exits', but the fiat the coins are bought with stays in China.

Bitmain already shutting down their mining in China since last year and I think we cannot stop the Chinese government from doing this, let’s just hope that it will not affect the market much again. There’s a great place for cryptos, we will find for that one and mining business will be good in time.

My opinion is that there will be no cardinal ban. The Chinese government is not so stupid as to deprive yourself of income, it seems to me that they agree with the miners and will find a common compromise.
P.S. may end up simply raising the price of electricity ...

I heard the rumor that chinese ASIC producers are pivoting toward building chips for AI.
As for Proof of Work I'm not sure if it's the way to go forward for altcoins, that said it's still the best model for initial distribution and liquidity.

Maybe after the dust settles. One obvious benefit is that FUDsters can no longer claim that China have too much influence on it if the production is more spread out.

Another possible good news for hodlers is that the price might increase. One main reason miners operated in China is the cheap electric. Production cost go up, so do the price that they'd sell their bitcoins.

first rule for crypto in china they use the word ban latter they form guidelines so the same is happening in minning sector they will regulate the industry in positive way

So let's wait until that time, and I am curious if they really eliminate the bitcoin and crypto mining sector or not. If it's happening, then the mining company will reduce, and in China, no other company wants to mine again because it's prohibited.
That will bring fresh air to the other country which still allowing people to mine bitcoin and altcoin because of they are losing one big competitor in the mining section so they can increase their hardware and can produce more rewards.

It feels like even if China bans all mining then BTC blockchain still won't become less centralized. Miners are getting more  profit is they unite in a single pool. If chinese pools will be shut down then people would join the other ones and major farms probably would be moved to safer areas, you can find cheap elecrticity not only in china.
The good thing that earlier every significant step of any big country towards crypto caused panic and a strong immediate dump but for now everything is safe.

I think Bitcoin miners are really working with the government ever since China made a U-turn last 2017, but it seems that no compromise can be meet in between, so the government "might" ban mining for good in China. So there's really no consensus right now if this could bring fresh air to the mining industry. Bitmain may just move somewhere else, or maybe other nations will enter the picture to challenge their monopoly. It's too early to see what going to happen, but I'm sure it will have a impact to the market in the short run.

China being involved in crypto world is really a big advantage for they are all into it and open for any possible opportunities. However, if they would ban mining, it would also affect a lot of miners not just in that country. I wish that every government would adopt cryptocurrency.

https://i.imgur.com/U0dXRIZ.jpg

Are China’s Ambitions To Combat Pollution Hurting Its Economy? (https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Asia/Are-Chinas-Ambitions-To-Combat-Pollution-Hurting-Its-Economy.html)

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The Chinese will need to make very tough choices in the future ... or they will be more developed more with super polluted air or should moderate in the polluting industries. I think the reason they are going to ban the miners is because of the pollution that has already hit alarming levels in China. In any case, China has a very dangerous regime and having most of the miners located in China becomes very dangerous

The machines are not getting confiscated, it will definitely have some affects on bitcoin for sure but that monopoly on mining will not go away completely. Maybe they will prefer to take them all and go to Iceland because they will pay less on both electricity (less than many countries, more than china) and have fewer concerns over heat obviously?

Maybe they will go to usa and build a completely renewable energy place? Maybe they will go to somewhere that is third world country that will accept them for small amount because even that small amount could make a difference there? I don't know what would be the next step for them but when there is millions of dollars at stake no company will say "oh its banned ok time to stop" I know that much. There is too much money involved.

This is the most possible scenario. China is in the top of the charts because the electricity is cheap and the temperature at the mining farm isn't too hot so it helps to maintain the hardware life. It might take some time for those companies to settle and find the best country which they can operate their mining firm (north pole maybe?), but they'll definitely come back.

And no, this is not going to increase decentralization and something like that. The giants will stay, just taking a break for a while.

Everyone are aware of the pollution problems faced by China which is the most populated country in the world. I don't think that pollution is the reason behind this ban since they never did like cryptocurrencies in the first place.

However, this will help the country decrease the pollution levels in a big way though. The question is which country will Bitmain and the others choose if the ban becomes effective.

If China really turns out to ban crypto mining those mining rigs will just be moved to other countries in the Asia region, China isn't the only place where to miners can get easy access to cheap electricity!
I'm sure that Antpool has a plan to set up their mining equipment in another country.
 

If all governments decide to go the Chinese  way, large scale miners would be doomed . I guess that is what will lead to true decentralization of mining and not one or two countries banning mining

Cryptocurrency is turning towards POS so if China ban mining still it might work out moving to other countries and staking based projects will get implemented

Is this considered a blessing? I do not think that. The miners have solved a lot for the trading volume in a day for us and they are very influential. if the miners in China do not do business anymore, perhaps the transaction fee of Bitcoin will increase very high in the near future.

China had this great dream since day one. By yuan being as famous a US dollar. They had dreamed of having yuan as a global currency and they strive their best to achieve it. Bitcoin was banned in China because it would affect the value of their own currency. Decentralized currency would affect a country's national currency and that is the reason why they are regulating it.

One of the reason as well is that mining bitcoin will require a lot of energy source which China will be able to use on industrial instead.
I've heard about a person who stole electricity from his neighbors to mine and that is one of the minor things that affected the decision of Chinese regulators.

the first impact from the China will be not separate because they are even planning to make their own cryptocurrency more powerful so I think it is not been worry everything because every country should not need to accept this.

I am also thinking similarly. The government will not gain anything by banning Bitcoin mining. Thousands of Chinese nationals will lose their jobs, the government will lose tax revenues and many smaller companies will become bankrupt.

Well, China has enough and good economic rate and that country is full of business. They don't want to take an advantage of cryptocurrency since it might affect the growth of their economy. I think there is a hidden agenda that they want to commit for a better economic. They don't want to take an advantage the advanced technology that we had today. They're aiming to be the top and wanted to surpass the bitcoon.

Yeah, but luckily it is just the Chinese government banning and their main reason is because of the power consumption of those miners. They should find a better place in other countries for their miners if they wish to continue their business of mining Bitcoin.

Even if they raise the price i think their electricity supply is not enough for the whole city to sustain for a long time. They may be suffering from power loss due to these miners operating everyday.

Events like china threatening to ban bitcoin mining occur everytime the price of bitcoin spikes. Its an amazing coincidence bordering on market manipulation. Almost as if there is a widespread agenda in place created to contain bitcoin's market value and prevent bull runs like the one which occurred in 2017. The timing of news releases such as accusations of tether "manipulating" crypto markets coincides with an upswing in btc price followed by an immediate downturn.

Crypto mining typically targets under-utilized sources of energy below market value premiums. The mobility of bitcoin mining, limited only by a fundamental requirement for internet connectivity means an overwhelming majority of bitcoin minining is powered by energy sources in untapped areas where there is a massive surplus of power which otherwise would not be consumed. This means nations like china gain nothing by banning bitcoin mining. It will free up energy but said energy was untapped in areas where there was no consumption, which changes nothing aside from greatly limiting commerce.

China lists cryptocurrency mining among backward processes, technologies, equipment and products that should be eliminated.

Full article here: https://www.unblock.news/technology/china-seeking-to-eliminate-cryptocurrency-mining

I don't think that majority of governments will follow China and ban mining. Also, such threats are coming form China for a long time now but nothing substantial is actually happening. Even if they do that Chinese miners will find other way to do their business, I'm not afraid of that.

right, there are still many other big countries that are on par with China, of course they have their own attitude in mining, I am determined, even though in China it is prohibited, of course the Chinese people will look for ways to keep making money from this mining

I suggest you to read the technical details about POW (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining#The_Difficulty_Metric) (mining).

There's no direct relationship between the number of miners and the number of solved blocks (and transactions) per day.
It will always be the average 1block per 10minutes or 144 per day unless there's a change in the network rules.

Even if there's no one (ASIC miners) left to mine but a single operating CPU, the average will still be 10minutes per block as the difficulty will be adjusted.

Even if they ban mining the chinese conglomerates are so big they can make deals with other countries and move their operations there. The central asia region springs to mind as they are rich in resources

You mean only the bigger miners, cause small miners that are based in China wouldn’t be ready to leave their country just because they want to be mining Bitcoin, I don’t think so. Only those big companies that are mining cryptocurrency are the ones that will decide to move their companies to a different location and continue their work. Just my opinion :).

Well Probably it is just an empty threat, maybe they say that they will ban it but actually not, do you really think that after all these years and with that many people who build tier whole life and their whole companies on mining crypto they will just quit, it may just be on paper and they won't actually shut down all the miners and pursue them, many people think that this is good and it will allow for more decentralization, but because of how there are a big percentage of the miners located in china it may lead to a lot of problems in the network, and it will affect bitcoin in a bad way.

Wouldn't they still be centralised if certain companies just decide to move to a more crypto-friendly country with more positive regulations, that also happens to have cheap electricity as a replacement of their mining activities in China? I'm sure that these mining companies are already thinking about this.

I'd say that "work wonders" is a huge exaggeration here. True decentralisation won't occur just because China bans mining, or whatever else.

Even if mining continues in China for a while more until the rules are finally enforced, I highly doubt that no one right now has been prepared for this new restriction to kick into effect. So if you say that it'll have a profoundly negative impact, then I'd disagree with you. But on the other hand, it doesn't have a notable positive effect either.

It is likely that we could see bitcoin suffering for the short term when this happens but I really think that this is for the better, it is interesting to me that something that is supposed to try to weaken bitcoin could in fact make it stronger, by forcing miners to relocate to other countries that could be more open to their operations the Chinese government is doing a favor to bitcoin because after most miners leave China they will not have as much influence as before over the market.

They will not do it suddenly because there will be lots of difficulties to make it possible because lots of people invest in Bitcoin also if these type of changes will happen in a country it will definitely affect the people also so the government will need to plan properly and execute it properly.

When they banned first time, they did not care. I do not think they will take things into consideration this time too. Check it, you will understand everything : https://cointelegraph.com/news/will-china-ban-crypto-mining

Well, whatever China's decision in compliance with their governments rule, one thing am I am sure of, is that it will have a great impact if that will be implemented. As expected, China will just only doing what they think was right. If shutting down btc mining will benefit both China country and the crypto industry, then let it be.

After a certain time, the Bitcoin network will recover and become truly decentralized.There are many alternative countries for mining.One of these countries is Ukraine.Cheap electricity and power loyalty favorably influence the placement of mining farms in this country.

This type of things easily district the people to get out from this because when the trust is reduced with our investment it will not been developed any more in our mind set that's why this type of things will definitely been considered as a big impact in the people's mind set.

In the past, China has always had rules that drew controversy, maybe because they wanted to advance their products or there were other plans, but certainly the decisions they made always influenced the crypto currency market, especially bitcoin, because China is one country that has an influence on the market world. But I hope the decision taken by China does not have a negative impact on the world market for crypto currencies.

So, I checked out the page they are referring to by clicking "revealed" in the article. Here's the link to that page:

http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/yjzx/yjzx_add_fgs.jsp?SiteId=318

I don't speak Chinese so I used the "translate" option of my browser to see the English version. I know that translation is most likely far from being accurate, and still I'm wondering why are there no such words as "Bitcoin", "mining" or "blockchain" in the whole document?

Anyway, from what I understand, it's just a suggestion, or rather a draft of suggestion, intended to get feedback from public for further corrections. But I think people who speak Chinese can enlighten us better on the matter.

I really don’t think it will have effect, they only banned mining and not the use of cryptocurrency, the reason why they could easily ban mining is because of the effect of it on their power, since we know that crypto mining consumes power, I am sure they have the technology to know where such heavy usage is emanating from.

So if they ban mining, other countries are available to continue with it, it is no big deal, in fact, many of us believe that the ban of mining will reduce the supply we have in the market making the demand to become high and in response to such, generate a high demand that will push the marketcap higher than it is now.

Decentralizing bitcoin mining is not only a matter of getting mining to several countries other than China, we also need that new players get into developing mining equipment since Bitmain has something very close to a monopoly going on and that cannot be something good for the community, I am not suggesting to get rid of Bitmain I just want to see more companies designing equipment for mining and taking away some of the market share of Bitmain.

Just because the mining doesn't physically occur within China doesn't mean it wont remain controlled by the same Chinese actors. This comment is ignorant at best. As long as people keep using Chinese pools, they will keep the power. If you are a miner, you must not mine in:

• Btc.com Bitmain
• Antpool Bitmain
• F2pool
• Poolin
• Viabtc Bitmain?
• BTC.top Bitmain?
• dpool
• Huobi

Notably missing from the top used pools is Slushpool which is not Chinese, but represents 10% only.

https://i.ibb.co/NZcZjFb/image.png (https://i.ibb.co/NZcZjFb/image.png)

I don't think banning crypto mining in china is a blessing to us, because the last I checked the miners are in charge of protecting the network and also confirming transactions on the blockchain, this means that once this miners are banned in chinese, we might see a lot of delay in the confirmation of transaction on the blockchain which will lead to a high transaction fee since smaller miners will now be the one to confirm all the transactions on the bitcoin blockchain.

I agree many can argue that the money drain from China will be reduced but to be quite honest will it? Look at Canada for example, Vancouver has been dubbed the ERNAI CITY for Chinese to take on 2nd wives and Mistresses, in order to get their foothold in another country. It's being done on a large scale by Rich Chinese Men in general. Here also, we have many Rich Chinese getting European passports by buying luxury properties. Nothing wrong with that at all, investing in different countries, that's what rich people do, but I doubt they blocking mining in China will stem the flow of money OUT of China. Bitmain and other miners will just move to pro blockchain countries like Vietnam or Latin America where the electricity is cheap and keep mining, taking away jobs from China. What I do see though is an electronic Yuan coming and a more centralized digital currency taking a foothold in China. Blockchain is not discouraged in China, on the contrary, you got coins like TRX, TRON run by great Chinese Businessmen with a wonderful acumen for business, it's just that Bitcoin seems way too decentralized now for the Chinese Govt to be able to control. Every country, of course, needs to do what it needs to do to protect its own. I understand the philosophy behind the Govt there. Make our currency strong then we can adopt other stuff..

Nope. We have that difficulty adjustment thing. And there are enough miners elsewhere. They've been slowly migrating. Anything China does to push BTC out gets a thumbs up from me. Nothing good has come from Chinese involvement. They've been a cancer since they arrived.

Bitmain have started spreading to other countries though? Bitdeer isn't in China and I think they'll probably move a lot of their miners there (they have a lot there already). So bitmain might still dominate the mining industry.

Is this a blessing? If all China miners stop mining bitcoin how much time will take for 1 bitcoin confirmation? If China miners stop mining the mining difficulty will be the same as before?

Exactly, and when I read this my first thought was that there was a major spin being put on the story.  The miners can't mine in China?  They can move.  It's not more decentralization, it's the same miners in different geographic regions.

No wonder I don't read news, cryptocurrency or otherwise.  It's all more slanted than the leaning tower of Pisa.

China isn't as united as it may seem. There are various government bodies with different layers of laws, and not only Bitcoin related parties benefit from that.

Most miners have started last year already to slowly migrate to other countries with how China isn't exactly that cheap anymore in terms of electricity, and this hasn't anything to do with the government(s) there. Some parts of China have been suffering from drought for quite a while now, and this significantly increases the electricity prices. If you add the bear market that made the price lose a lot of its value, it basically forces miners even more to look for alternative countries.

In the end, the mining aspect has had to deal with so much fud throughout the years, yet it has never gone through many problems at all. The problem is playing out between people's ears.

I guess no matter how that difficulty turns out in the end there will be a small time period where everything will get stuck and the transaction fee will get up. Maybe it will an hour maybe it will be a week but in the end we will have that trouble. China not allowing miners doesn't mean the Chinese will stop, they can just move to anywhere they want because they have that type of power and money to do that, all they have to do is move their miners to a new location and they can continue like nothing happened.

There are miner friendly countries as well who give good discounts on big usage to get taxes from their earnings, that is why I doubt they will stop, this is just stopping Chinese "government" involvement in mining, otherwise Chinese people will still be involved for sure.

I kind of hope this happens because this will give the hobby minres at home a chance to make some profit.  Right now the giants like Bitmain are sucking every drop of profit from this market leaving virtually nothing for the little guys.

If the Chinese government prohibits mining Bitcoin, I think that nothing will change. About the prohibition of mining Bitcoin in China, they say about two years. During this time, many with their farms left China for other countries and there are mining cryptocurrency. So I do not see any problems. Let them finally decide in China what they want, and this uncertainty that has been going on for two years is annoying.

Regardless of restrictions there will always be a way to run the show and I believe same thing will implied in China as this country has so many restrictions when it comes to crypto but there are people who does mining for their living and I am sure they will find one or the other way out to do it. But the sad part is that the mining is not as profitable as it was before a year and a half.

Unless you have the most advanced mining equipment and you join a pool then you have no chance of making profits, bitcoin mining stopped being the field of hobbyist long time ago, Chinese miners only have to move to another country with cheap electricity and everything will be back to normal for them and if they are smart they are not going to do all of this at once which means there is not going to be any window of opportunity for miners like you.

I would say that most miners won't leave their country unless mining is the biggest source of income that they have, and the only one sustaining them. It is *possible* that miners will move their operations out of China, but I don't think most will if they have another form of employment. They may move the equipment out of the country and have it managed by international members, but it's a lot harder to move citizenship between countries than you'd think. Doing all of that just to keep mining Bitcoin is dicey.

All of your other points are correct, however. Hobby miners won't get anywhere (still) and most industrial miners will continue to get bigger.

I think we shouldn't forget one very important thing regarding China's plan to ban Bitcoin mining. China is a very corrupt state. Bribery and theft of public funds costs at least three percent of China's GDP. Corruption is wide spread not only on the lower levels of society, but on the highest levels as well. Many high ranking government officials have been found guilty of corruption in the recent yeas. So, this "plan to ban Bitcoin mining" can be simply a way to compel big mining companies to bribe some government officials so that they wouldn't carry the law into effect.

Miners do not really have to leave their country, they only need to transfer out their operations. These are rather different things. Considering also that most big China based miners actually had very close relationships with power providers,,, I remember a lot of them had individual deals with hydro companies,,, I think more is made out of the issue than really is.

They're trying to discourage everything to do with bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general because they can't control it's price.

According to the following, they want to issue a cryptocurrency version of the renmimbi:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/official-chinese-currency-renminbi-to-become-cryptocurrency-expert-says