China’s Gansu province warns against BTC mining in national data centers

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A Chinese province has issued a fresh warning against block reward mining in national data centers. The warning comes at a time when there has been rapid construction of data centers in Western China.

China has been cracking down on BTC miners for the longest time by issuing threats, setting up hotlines, monitoring energy consumption, and other measures. Once the world’s biggest mining hub, the country booted out thousands of miners who fled to neighboring countries while others fled to the U.S., Canada, and Iceland.

While the campaign to kick out miners seemed like a success initially, studies showed that China was second only to the U.S. last year in BTC hash rate production. This has seen state and national regulators continue to crack down on miners, and Gansu province is the latest.

In its notice, the province’s administration ordered any company setting up a data center to establish a robust monitoring mechanism. This includes monitoring power and water consumption, data center utilization, and other metrics.

“Any data center is strictly prohibited from participating in virtual currency ‘mining’ projects,” the notice, issued last week, pointed out.

The warning comes when China has embarked on a massive data center construction project. Earlier this year, President Xi Jinping announced that the country would build these data centers in the “economically underdeveloped but energy-rich western region of the country.” Gansu is among the provinces benefitting from the project.

Illegal block reward mining is rampant in China. While many miners fled the country after the crackdown, many others went underground and were mining in disguise. This has included mining in public institutions, EV charging stations, abandoned factories, and more.

The latest crackdown comes as block reward miners continue to struggle as the bear market continues to bite. CoinGeek reported recently that Compute North filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $500 million in debt. The company, which operated data centers for HIVE Blockchain, Marathon Digital, and other big names in the industry, could not continue operations after defaulting on its loans.

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