China's capital Beijing is trying to figure out how cryptocurrency miners impact on energy consumption, Reuters has learned, citing sources familiar with the matter.
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Beijing's data center operators now receive notices from the local watchdog in which they are obliged to report on whether they are involved in bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) or other cryptocurrency mining businesses. In case a data center is involved is this activity, it should report the amount, and share, of power consumed by cryptocurrency mining. The notice already received at least China's three biggest telecoms operators, an anonymous representative of the watchdog added.
It remains unclear whether this is part of a nationwide campaign against cryptocurrency miners or not. As iHodl previously reported, the recent drop in the hashrate of bitcoin could have been related to several accidents in coal mines in China. Over the past three weeks there have been three accidents in coal mines in the Chinese provinces of Shanxi, Guizhou and Xinjiang.
Due to the seriousness of the accidents, in which a dozen people have reportedly died, coal-powered electricity plants had started to carry out safety inspections and have cut off power supply to large data centers in the area.
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