Why is moving mining out of China a bad thing?

[jellylily]

Sorry for the noob question but if the mining goes on outside of China, isn't that a good thing? At the very least, there is the semblance of law and business rights. Also, if China bans mining, wouldn't that increase the scarcity?
Again, not a veteran. Just wondering why the negative sentiment?

[mk4]

It's sort of both a positive and a negative. Positive in a way that hashrate will be more spread out to other places and that we won't get to see the "BiTcOiN iS ConTroLLeD bY ChiNa" FUD again. Negative in a way that while Bitcoin can't technically get banned, people get reminded that Bitcoin can be outlawed by the government.

As for the negative sentiment, while I think that having the negativity is expected, it sure is totally overblown. A combination of the word "ban" and news sites spamming the masses with such articles simply does negatively affect how the uneducated masses look at Bitcoin.

Also, if China bans mining, wouldn't that increase the scarcity?

Not really. Hashrate's going to drop in the short term, but the number of bitcoin mined per block stays the same.

[ranochigo]

Mining will always be centralized, even if China bans it. There is no telling of the kinds of regulations that the relocated miners will be subjected to. If anything, China banning it just shows that they never had any intention of weaponizing the miners that they have so it really wasn't of any concern in the first place.

The actual problem is the fact that governments are starting to take anti-Bitcoin stance. That is not good, no matter which government is implementing it. The negative sentiment is mostly focused on the drop in the value of Bitcoin. Demographics of the investors makes it such that they are particularly susceptible to FUD.

[cabron]

It's more of a positive since the fud of BTC is centralized due to that hash from China so this fud will be over as well as the fossil fuel issue. It's good for China since they are trying to isolate themselves after all they want control with CBDC. China fud is over and it might shift somewhere in central and southern America which is also positive because of the mass adoption coming.

[Dave1]

Sorry for the noob question but if the mining goes on outside of China, isn't that a good thing? At the very least, there is the semblance of law and business rights.

Yeah, at least there is no single country that has the total monopoly of bitcoin mining. If I'm not mistaken, China or at least the Chinese miners control 60%-70% of it.

Also, if China bans mining, wouldn't that increase the scarcity?
Again, not a veteran. Just wondering why the negative sentiment?

Not really increase the scarcity, the hash rate might fall, but when some entities pick up mining outside of China then we can go back to the normal rate.

[brainactive]

Yeah, at least there is no single country that has the total monopoly of bitcoin mining. If I'm not mistaken, China or at least the Chinese miners control 60%-70% of it.

If we assume that 20% of miners are not willing to relocate and call it quits (sell all their btc mined) and the remaining 80% relocate (and sell a portion to fund relocation costs), seems like this would cause a lot of selling pressure. Thoughts on this?

[Darker45]

The negative sentiment is created more by the FUD that came out of the news rather than the news itself. I do think the exodus of mining farms out of China is generally good than bad. The hashrate drop is but temporary so there's nothing to worry. It will certainly recover once these mining farms have already found a place somewhere to set up their gears and start running once again. I hope this will stop all kinds of baseless FUD made in China once and for all.

[brainactive]

The negative sentiment is created more by the FUD that came out of the news rather than the news itself. I do think the exodus of mining farms out of China is generally good than bad. The hashrate drop is but temporary so there's nothing to worry. It will certainly recover once these mining farms have already found a place somewhere to set up their gears and start running once again. I hope this will stop all kinds of baseless FUD made in China once and for all.

As @ranochigo just mentioned, the problem is the fact that governments are starting to take anti-Bitcoin stance. This is a genuine risk, not FUD and it shouldn't be dismissed.

[Lorence.xD]

It does increase the scarcity but it doesn't have that much impact. Also moving their mining out of the country is going to be an expensive thing to do because some of them will probably bring their equipments overseas. Plus the reason for the negative sentiment is to sow panic among the market to manipulate the prices.

[Darker45]

The negative sentiment is created more by the FUD that came out of the news rather than the news itself. I do think the exodus of mining farms out of China is generally good than bad. The hashrate drop is but temporary so there's nothing to worry. It will certainly recover once these mining farms have already found a place somewhere to set up their gears and start running once again. I hope this will stop all kinds of baseless FUD made in China once and for all.

As @ranochigo just mentioned, the problem is the fact that governments are starting to take anti-Bitcoin stance. This is a genuine risk, not FUD and it shouldn't be dismissed.

Which governments in particular? We will be worried when by the time the miners coming from China finally find a place to settle down they are once again shooed away. It will be a real problem when the miners are not accepted by all the governments of the countries they want to operate from. That's not happening right now. As a matter of fact, there were offers to them, on the contrary. I heard of Miami giving a welcoming gesture to the miners. There is El Salvador offering a renewable energy source. And probably more countries that are amenable to Bitcoin mining operations.

[crwth]

It would affect all the users of BTC if the hash rate drops. It would likely result in an increase in fee when that happens and it would be logistically hard to do as well. A lot of people have set up their mining farm there and they aren't going to move that easily and it's not going to be easy to stop them as well. If you are one of the miners, I doubt you would want to move where you have set up already.

[yazher]

Sorry for the noob question but if the mining goes on outside of China, isn't that a good thing? At the very least, there is the semblance of law and business rights. Also, if China bans mining, wouldn't that increase the scarcity?
Again, not a veteran. Just wondering why the negative sentiment?

It will become good things we just need to wait for them to relocate but they need to be sure that they will go to some places that won't gonna change their mind later. I mean to those places that will not ban them again. because that would be some kind of a waste of resources and time. therefore, if they can look for a better place than China, they need to move as soon as possible to counter this kind of Chinese bullying. these guys won't let others prosper because what they're doing here is cutting opportunities so that they all have the kinds of money sources that you ever need to go. slowly but surely, this kind of greed is on another level.

[ranochigo]

Which governments in particular? We will be worried when by the time the miners coming from China finally find a place to settle down they are once again shooed away. It will be a real problem when the miners are not accepted by all the governments of the countries they want to operate from. That's not happening right now. As a matter of fact, there were offers to them, on the contrary. I heard of Miami giving a welcoming gesture to the miners. There is El Salvador offering a renewable energy source. And probably more countries that are amenable to Bitcoin mining operations.

It isn't that much of a concern. It is difficult to regulate mining if done on a smaller scale and some countries are definitely more welcoming to miners. At worst, the hashrate drops significantly and smaller scale mining operations thrives. The problem arises if the country has a certain agenda, that isn't favourable to Bitcoin.

Miners are important economic agents in the economic system. While you can argue that they don't wield as much power in terms of the network decisions, they still play an important role. If the country that the miner relocates forces the miners to adopt policies that are detrimental to Bitcoin, then I suppose there is really some real concern there. Certainly don't think everyone wants to see more pools adopting some dubious OFAC compliant blocks.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Its just a fud. For me its a good thing also that some miners will be out of China. So what if they did banned some of those miners. For what? For supporting their own coin that will be launch by them anytime? Not a big deal I guess and only people who understand that this is is not a big deal should nit be hampered by such news. Anyway its already drop a big fud and btc drop already. Later on these people will realize its just a common thing about mining.

[kiki8899]

While I do think it was dumb for the Chinese government to shut down a substantial amount of hash power within their boarders, I don't think it was done out of arrogance. The Chinese are masters at playing the long game, they have extremely low time preference. It may seem short sighted to crack down so fast and hard on mining, but I'm certain they have thought this out. Maybe they simply saw bitcoin as a threat to their coming CBDC or maybe they have other intentions. Only time will reveal what their true motives are. Either way, don't underestimate the CCP and their ability to wait a long time to get what they want.。

[GreatArkansas]

Its just a fud. For me its a good thing also that some miners will be out of China. So what if they did banned some of those miners. For what?
(.....)

What my thoughts for this are other countries will start to explore Bitcoin mining, probably some businesses will try to explore Bitcoin mining in some other countries, not only in China. Since as we all know, China got one of the very cheap electricity and labor fee for workers.
So, this FUD or recently negative news of Bitcoin from China will be a trigger to other countries about Bitcoin mining. FUD but there are good effects too.

[seoincorporation]

Sorry for the noob question but if the mining goes on outside of China, isn't that a good thing? At the very least, there is the semblance of law and business rights. Also, if China bans mining, wouldn't that increase the scarcity?
Again, not a veteran. Just wondering why the negative sentiment?

The real problem here is if the china miners decide to sell their coins, since they have the biggest farms then a massive sale should represent a huge crash on the market, and I think that's part of what we see in the past 12hours. It was crazy to see bitcoin going down to $28k and how the market capitalization was going down, that means someone takes a huge amount of money to their pockets, and I have the feeling that the ones doing that were some china miners.

[Darker45]

Which governments in particular? We will be worried when by the time the miners coming from China finally find a place to settle down they are once again shooed away. It will be a real problem when the miners are not accepted by all the governments of the countries they want to operate from. That's not happening right now. As a matter of fact, there were offers to them, on the contrary. I heard of Miami giving a welcoming gesture to the miners. There is El Salvador offering a renewable energy source. And probably more countries that are amenable to Bitcoin mining operations.

It isn't that much of a concern. It is difficult to regulate mining if done on a smaller scale and some countries are definitely more welcoming to miners. At worst, the hashrate drops significantly and smaller scale mining operations thrives. The problem arises if the country has a certain agenda, that isn't favourable to Bitcoin.

Miners are important economic agents in the economic system. While you can argue that they don't wield as much power in terms of the network decisions, they still play an important role. If the country that the miner relocates forces the miners to adopt policies that are detrimental to Bitcoin, then I suppose there is really some real concern there. Certainly don't think everyone wants to see more pools adopting some dubious OFAC compliant blocks.

I agree. There are potential risks in there, although I strongly believe the joke which is Marathon OFAC Pool won't be sustainable, not in its current standard. Anybody who's relishing the permissionless and censorship-resistant Bitcoin would never ever accede to this joke.

Anyway, the risks we are probably reacting to right now are not real, not yet at least. There will probably be smothering government regulations on Bitcoin mining in the years to come. But for as long as those things are not yet a reality, any reaction, any panic selling and huge price drop on that basis is a reaction to fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

[pooya87]

Unless you think "majority" of hashrate is in China there is nothing good about a country not having any hashrate. China only has a small portion of the hashrate among its mining farms, it is bigger than most countries but compared to total hashrate it is still very small and considered minority. If it goes to zero it means one big country is removed from being able to mine bitcoin which is a bad thing.

All this drama that we've been seeing recently is partly because the whale accumulators want to manipulate the market and accumulate cheap bitcoins which is why there is a lot of misinformation coming out about China, its hashrate and the crackdown. But also it is partly because China released its "digital Yuan" crap, I have a feeling that they are trying to force people into using it and think restricting bitcoin users is a way. All of it will go away soon though specially when price surpasses $40k everyone forgets about China until we are at something like $200k and have a $50k drop which is when the "China banned bitcoin" FUD comes out again

[bbc.reporter]

Sorry for the noob question but if the mining goes on outside of China, isn't that a good thing? At the very least, there is the semblance of law and business rights. Also, if China bans mining, wouldn't that increase the scarcity?
Again, not a veteran. Just wondering why the negative sentiment?

Yes it is a very good thing. Look how very large the largest mining pools were in Sichuan. This is what was left after the machines were transfered.





No it will not increase scarcity. If hashrate goes down, also difficulty goes down. Bitcoin’s scarcity is from the monetary policy.

Also, the argument in this reddit post has increased in relevance because we have witnessed the risks of centralization of hashrate. Asic resistance might be impossible, however.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/k0czhk/why_asic_resistance_is_ridiculously_important/