[2020-02-08] Police Shuts Down Bitcoin Mine Over Coronavirus

[bbc.reporter]

Where are those who are telling everyone that the corona virus will be good for bitcoin? Any world crisis creating event will never be good for anything. Those people creating those types of storyboards only want a pump.



A huge bitcoin mine has been shut down in China in an attempt to contain the Coronavirus outbreak that has now reached 28,000 confirmed cases in China.

Jiang Zhuoer, founder of bitcoin mining pool BTC.Top, revealed the forced shutdown on Tuesday, stating according to a very rough translation:

“Epidemic prevention in some places is already a mess. I have a mine in a remote suburb. The police came to force all the mining authorities and said that they would not resume work.

As infection numbers increase, however, it seems more and more measures are being taken to the point authorities there are now closing down remote mining farms, like the one pictured above.

Zhuoer said this is just one of many of his farms, but he appears concerned other premises might close too, stating:

“If we go on like this, most of the people (especially the laboring people in the front line) will have to die of poverty without suffering from the virus.”

Read in full https://www.trustnodes.com/2020/02/06/police-shuts-down-bitcoin-mine-over-coronavirus

[buwaytress]

Sounds like someone could just be saying he got caught tapping into residential power for commercial use, or paying discounted rates when he shouldn't be (which is the major reason they're closing down operations related to mining). And to save face, blame it on coronavirus.

I don't believe the outbreak's got anything to do with price. But I believe far less that it's got anything to do with officials shutting down a remote facility that likely has no risk of contagion anyway.

[NeuroticFish]

I think that it somehow makes sense. I mean, from what I've read the important services are disrupted.
The maintenance personnel should stay mostly home for now. I'm not sure how do they live in the mine as the owner claims, I'm not sure that's also legal.
And.. what if such a facility catches fire? I'm not sure the fire service will come to extinguish it.

[gentlemand]

Don't get it.

It's not as if there's hundreds of people coming and going on a daily basis. It's probably a few worker bees locked in a warehouse trying not to go deaf. There's no stock deliveries. It looks like no one goes home at night and there probably aren't very many people there in total anyway.

[Lucius]

Don't get it.

I think the real reason for the closure may be lost in translation, because what can be read in the article really doesn't make sense. If workers are permanently on the farm, what risk do they pose for spreading the virus?

It is possible that the farm has been closed because electricity needs have increased in the region, with existing and new hospitals operating at increased capacity and people stay at home. In such situations, priorities must be determined, and one of them is certainly electricity, which must be distributed where it is most needed. Crypto mining farms at this moment are definitely not a priority.

[figmentofmyass]

Don't get it.

It's not as if there's hundreds of people coming and going on a daily basis. It's probably a few worker bees locked in a warehouse trying not to go deaf. There's no stock deliveries. It looks like no one goes home at night and there probably aren't very many people there in total anyway.

it's not totally clear, but it may have do to with quarantine policies implemented at the municipal/provincial levels, which may be getting stricter. perhaps the operators of this farm are accused of violating a quarantine. maybe the farm is in a place like guizhou and they are accused of bringing too many employees on site. this is from another coindesk article:

Two-thirds of the company’s employees did not go home for the Chinese New Year, and have instead been working at the mining sites. However, for those who did go home it will take weeks to return to work, Yang said.

Many cities now require a two-week quarantine for people coming back from other areas before letting them go back to work, he said.

For example, the Xinjiang autonomous region, an area that hosts a significant portion of mining farms due to its cheap electricity, has implemented strict policies to quarantine not only those coming back from the Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, but also any other province or region, Yang said.

“We asked our employees to come back to Xinjiang as early as possible so that they can start the two-week quarantine and go back to work,” Yang said, noting policies may vary among different areas in China.

The company’s mining farm in Guizhou is subject to a stricter policy. “We are allowed to let our employees work on site and can only keep a few people to maintain the operation,” he said.

Sichuan province, which controls over 50 percent of bitcoin’s hashrate, also requires the two-week quarantine, according to Yang.

[dunfida]

Everything would be connected when an epidemic rises and do talk about quarantine matters.Either a facility do have more or less employees they would be still subject on such closure or stop operation.Im not surprised imho.

[pixie85]

Don't get it.

It's not as if there's hundreds of people coming and going on a daily basis. It's probably a few worker bees locked in a warehouse trying not to go deaf. There's no stock deliveries. It looks like no one goes home at night and there probably aren't very many people there in total anyway.

They even said in the article that there were no new arrivals to the mine. They were locked up living inside the entire time the virus was active.

I'd say the visit by these authorities that wanted to shut it down made them much more vulnerable because the people who came could have brought the virus into the mine and those employees will now have to travel back home which will force them to interact with people in train stations and streets. They were perfectly safe in that mine as long as they had food and water.

[NeuroticFish]

They even said in the article that there were no new arrivals to the mine. They were locked up living inside the entire time the virus was active.

I think that the authorities simply didn't have a "procedure" for the cases the employees can stay safely in the facility for months. Or didn't believe the claims of the owners.

[hugeblack]

Those sites are trying to profit from any hot headline, especially Bitcoin and Coronavirus.
Assuming the news is correct, how many farms have been closed, one, two, ten? Does it make a difference?
China is going through an emergency and even the farms that were closed because of the virus, but this does not mean that it has been closed forever, it will return to work again. The vacation in China will end today, the closure may last for another week, but the major companies are operating normally with no delay.

In short, the news to attract views.

[davis196]

Those sites are trying to profit from any hot headline, especially Bitcoin and Coronavirus.
Assuming the news is correct, how many farms have been closed, one, two, ten? Does it make a difference?
China is going through an emergency and even the farms that were closed because of the virus, but this does not mean that it has been closed forever, it will return to work again. The vacation in China will end today, the closure may last for another week, but the major companies are operating normally with no delay.

In short, the news to attract views.

That's right and I think that we are focused way too much on this "how corona virus will affect bitcoin and mining?" topic.People are dying from the virus and the only thing we care about is the impact of the virus over Bitcoin.This is ridiculous.Bitcoin is doing just fine.There's no need to spread panic and trust some probably fake news.Even if the mines are shutdown,this won't last forever.

[gentlemand]

That's right and I think that we are focused way too much on this "how corona virus will affect bitcoin and mining?" topic.People are dying from the virus and the only thing we care about is the impact of the virus over Bitcoin.This is ridiculous.Bitcoin is doing just fine.There's no need to spread panic and trust some probably fake news.Even if the mines are shutdown,this won't last forever.

It taps into the OG bitcoiner fondness for wishing doom and conspiracy mindedness. It's a really, really unattractive look. I can imagine thousands of fingers rushing to thousands of shafts and yanking furiously with every bit of misinterpreted or plain fictional 'news' that hits their feeds.

It definitely will affect conventional economies so it's worth pondering whether that'll do anything to crypto. Beyond that it makes me want to put a lot of people on ignore.

[Saint-loup]

In this article Jiang Zhuoer says his mining farm has been shutdown certainly just because all the factories of the area have been closed with no exceptions.


“Maybe all the other factories have been shut down, and we are no exception,” Jiang added.
https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/china-shuts-bitcoin-mining-farms-following-coronavirus-epidemic/

[bryant.coleman]

A lot of people were complaining about the dominance of the Chinese in Bitcoin mining sector. Perhaps they will be satisfied with the drop in hash rate now. But all of us need to remember that this is just a temporary drop. The stats regarding Coronavirus from the last few days indicate that the Chinese authorities have managed to contain the epidemic. Now it is mostly limited to the province of Hubei in Central China. This means that the mining farms in Sichuan, Gansu.etc will resume their operations pretty soon.

[Lucius]

Saint-loup, article you posted is from 7.2.2020, just one day after one posted in OP, and only new thing what I learned from this other article is that "the local authorities of Sichuan province" closed some mining farms back in December due to the dry season and lack of electricity. Maybe this is case even now, and allegedly shuts down of that mining farm in fact it only has indirect connections with virus (described in my previous post).

This means that the mining farms in Sichuan, Gansu.etc will resume their operations pretty soon.

That remains to be seen, I think the virus situation is far from resolved, and that the farms shutdowns actually stems from the fact that electricity needs have increased in addition to the dry season, which means that the production of energy from hydropower plants is significantly reduced.

[bryant.coleman]

That remains to be seen, I think the virus situation is far from resolved, and that the farms shutdowns actually stems from the fact that electricity needs have increased in addition to the dry season, which means that the production of energy from hydropower plants is significantly reduced.

Most of the energy in China is generated from the thermal power-plants, and in case the hydroelectric plants are operating below capacity then that should be made up by the other sources. The government is claiming that the spread of the virus is slowing down significantly. The number of deaths are on the increase, but the number of new infections have been on the decline for the past few days. So I assume that there will be less restrictive actions from the government, especially in provinces other then Hubei.

[Harlot]

Don't get it.

It's not as if there's hundreds of people coming and going on a daily basis. It's probably a few worker bees locked in a warehouse trying not to go deaf. There's no stock deliveries. It looks like no one goes home at night and there probably aren't very many people there in total anyway.

Even though the article stated that their miner is located in Wuhan I'm guessing it is located around or near the Wuhan and Hubei province so any kind of activities or unnecessary things like this would be shutdown. The lock down they are doing is not only in the Wuhan province itself but any location around it so they are really limiting any kind of activities even schools are shut down to lessen the risk of infection. I know that this is big since from what I know BTC.top is one of the biggest mining pools out there and one hit of at least a few of their miners would decrease the hashrate we have, the longer the duration of their closure and also additional mining farms in China being shutdown would be catastrophic to us. 

[Saint-loup]

Saint-loup, article you posted is from 7.2.2020, just one day after one posted in OP, and only new thing what I learned from this other article is that "the local authorities of Sichuan province" closed some mining farms back in December due to the dry season and lack of electricity. Maybe this is case even now, and allegedly shuts down of that mining farm in fact it only has indirect connections with virus (described in my previous post).

This means that the mining farms in Sichuan, Gansu.etc will resume their operations pretty soon.

That remains to be seen, I think the virus situation is far from resolved, and that the farms shutdowns actually stems from the fact that electricity needs have increased in addition to the dry season, which means that the production of energy from hydropower plants is significantly reduced.

Ok thank you for the informations, I wasn't aware of that. Well there seems to be some fud currently with the coronavirus even if it's a serious situation.

[bbc.reporter]

Those sites are trying to profit from any hot headline, especially Bitcoin and Coronavirus.
Assuming the news is correct, how many farms have been closed, one, two, ten? Does it make a difference?
China is going through an emergency and even the farms that were closed because of the virus, but this does not mean that it has been closed forever, it will return to work again. The vacation in China will end today, the closure may last for another week, but the major companies are operating normally with no delay.

In short, the news to attract views.

That's right and I think that we are focused way too much on this "how corona virus will affect bitcoin and mining?" topic.People are dying from the virus and the only thing we care about is the impact of the virus over Bitcoin.This is ridiculous.Bitcoin is doing just fine.There's no need to spread panic and trust some probably fake news.Even if the mines are shutdown,this won't last forever.

It is only news and speculating on what might occur next. What is worse are those people who spins a crisis into good news for bitcoin's price because bitcoin can fix everything.

[1Referee]

The number of deaths are on the increase, but the number of new infections have been on the decline for the past few days. So I assume that there will be less restrictive actions from the government, especially in provinces other then Hubei.

I wouldn't really count on less restrictive actions for a while, because when you loosen the actions taken, people will automatically start to continue living their life the normal way, thus increasing the odds of new infections. China as paranoid as they are, will definitely not let that happen so they will continue their current approach as it seems to be effective.

Looking at the current hashrate, it's fairly stable so there doesn't seem to be much of an actual impact at all. As the price continues to go up, more gear will be put to work, so whatever gear ends up getting turned off, the effect will be nullified by the gear being turned on.