Advertisement
Digital currencies
TechPolicy

China bitcoin mining: Huobi suspends domestic bitcoin mining amid global sell-off, wider Beijing scrutiny

  • Huobi has become one of the first Chinese-founded cryptocurrency exchanges to halt its domestic bitcoin mining operation
  • China’s State Council announced last Friday a further crackdown on bitcoin mining and trading

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
1
Huobi’s office in Beijing as seen on May 9, 2014. Photo: Simon Song
Tracy Qu

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has suspended bitcoin mining services and sales of mining equipment in mainland China, becoming one of the first Chinese-founded platforms to do so, as the price of bitcoin continues to fall after the central government announced a crackdown.

Advertisement

“In order to be more focused on the expansion of our overseas presence, we will currently suspend provision of related services for new users in mainland China. For existing users, updated information and details will be announced shortly,” a spokeswoman at Huobi said in a statement to the South China Morning Post on Monday.

While Huobi’s hosting services on its mining cloud platform have been suspended, the mining pool it manages, Huobi.pool, continues normal operations, the company said in a separate notice posted to its chat group on Chinese messaging app QQ.

02:27

Cryptocurrency volatility highlighted by China’s recent crackdown and Elon Musk comments

Cryptocurrency volatility highlighted by China’s recent crackdown and Elon Musk comments
The government, which has banned financial transactions of bitcoin and other tokens since 2019, had turned a blind eye towards the cryptocurrency mining farms in Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Xinjiang and other mainland locations until now.
China will “crack down on bitcoin mining and trading behaviour, and resolutely prevent the transfer of individual risks to the society”, according to a statement last Friday by the State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee chaired by Vice-Premier Liu He, the president‘s top representative on economic and financial matters.
That statement came three days after Chinese state-backed financial associations jointly issued a warning about the risks stemming from volatile cryptocurrencies.
Advertisement

Bitcoin, the world‘s largest cryptocurrency, has recently suffered a major global sell-off. By Monday noon, its price fell 6.4 per cent in the past 24 hours to US$34,900, nearly half its highest price this year of US$64,895 on April 14.

Bitcoin prices have been under pressure since Tesla’s chief executive Elon Musk said earlier this month that the company would no longer accept the currency as payment.
Advertisement