The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) recently declared it had the authority to require of local governments to regulate Bitcoin mining with the goal of limiting production and cutting down power consumption in the country, Reuters reports, citing an anonymous source. At this point, the Chinese central bank cannot directly intervene in Bitcoin mining operations within national borders, but it can use local governments as levers because the latter have such powers..
The source told Reuters that PBOC plans to use its influence to rein in Bitcoin mining, which is what the monetary authority stated before members of the Leading Group of Beijing Internet Financial Risks Remediation during a meeting last month. According to statistics, China is by far the largest Bitcoin mining country, with a market share of about 80%..
Here is their distribution as displayed by Blockchain.info: There are more reasons why China is a world leader in the field of Bitcoin mining. As Garrick Hileman of the University of Cambridge told Business Insider: According to 2017 statistics of electricity prices (USD/kWh), China offers electricity at a very low cost: The problem is that the use of electricity for Bitcoin mining has increased dramatically in the past few years..
Global energy use for Bitcoin mining exceeds the individual consumption of 159 countries. Given that China is the biggest player and its energy comes mostly from coal, Bitcoin mining causes serious pollution in a direct way..
https://cryptovest.com/news/china-c-bank-may-try-indirect-regulation-of-bitcoin-mining/
