The Chinese bitcoin mining machine sellers immune to the cryptocurrency crackdown
Buyers of China-made bitcoin mining hardware come from Russia and India despite Beijing’s clampdown on trading, mining farms and payment channels
For three days, “Alex”, a 38-year-old businessman from Russia, combed central Shenzhen looking for China’s best prices on bitcoin equipment.
But after comparing those of 30 different retailers in one of the world’s liveliest electronics marketplaces, he still could not decide what to buy.
“It’s not just about the price,” Alex said, scribbling price information in his notebook. “It’s about how to choose a real retailer [that I trust].”
Six months ago, when Alex bought 200 pieces of equipment in Moscow for the bitcoin mining business he intended to start, prices in the Russian capital were 20 per cent higher than in China.
Here in Shenzhen, it was a different story: there simply were too many small mining-machine retailers from which to choose.
While a crackdown launched by Chinese financial regulators on bitcoin – shutting down mainland bitcoin exchanges, ordering local governments to clean up mining farms and freezing payment channels for cryptocurrency transactions – has hurt bitcoin demand in China, it has barely affected suppliers of made-in-China mining hardware.
And that’s amid high volatility in cryptocurrency prices.