China’s Bitmain Technologies, operator of some of the largest mining farms in the country is eyeing Bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) mining sites in Quebec, Reuters quotes a company spokesman as saying.
The company is in talks with regional power authorities in the province and is also planning to expand in Switzerland, Bitmain spokesman Nishant Sharma said.
Two Chinese miners told Reuters that local authorities had grown more unwilling to allow expansion and had started to shut down some mines in late 2017, as China clamped down on cryptocurrencies.
“We, and from what I understand many of our peers, are already making plans to go overseas,” said Li Wei, chief executive of ZQMiner, a Wuhan-based company that sells Bitcoin mining equipment and has mines in three Chinese provinces.
Stephane Paquet, a vice president of Montreal International, which promotes foreign investment in the province’s largest city, has called Quebec a place for “green Bitcoin.”
According to Hydro Quebec, the province has an energy surplus equivalent to 100 Terawatt hours over 10 years.
Neither of the companies disclosed the names of interested miners.