Ethereum is the most recent asset suffering from China’s crackdown on crypto and crypto-related activities.
When China begun to crackdown on mining earlier in the year, much focus had been placed on bitcoin given that it was the most popular cryptocurrency in the market. And with energy concerns being a problem, China had gone after the bitcoin mining rigs in the country.
This had led to what was known as the “great miner migration” that saw mining facilities suspend and move their mining operations out of the country. By virtue of the crackdown, bitcoin mining operations had ground to a complete stop in the region. And now, as crackdowns on bitcoin mining have led to the exit of miners out of the country, authorities have now turned their attention to Ethereum mining rigs.
ETH Taking The Heat
It was reported that authorities in Inner Mongolia had received a tip-off that led to the discovery of an Ethereum mining operation being carried out in a warehouse. According to the report, it stated that over 10,000 mining equipment were seized from the warehouse with an electricity consumption of 1,104 kWh. Cryptocurrency mining is currently banned in China and as such, any activities involving the mining of virtual currencies are illegal in the country.
The energy consumption of mining is a controversial issue as it is estimated that bitcoin mining alone uses the energy equivalent of a top 30 energy-consuming country in the world. Estimates say that bitcoin mining per year uses as much energy as the entire country of Pakistan, whose population is over 200 million.
It is reported that 45 mining operations have been shut down in Inner Mongolia alone. And the amount of energy saved from the shutdowns has saved the region 6.58 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. This much energy is equivalent to 2 million tons of coal burned per year.
Major ETH Mining Operation Shuts Down
SparkPool has had to shut down mining operations in China following the crackdown on crypto mining. The world’s second-leading Ethereum mining pool announced that it was going to suspend access to users. The shutdown which began on September 24th began by retiring only Mainland China users plans to suspend activities for all users of its mining pool by September 30th.
Users are advised to move out of the pool before this date and the team will also keep users updated on how to safely move their funds out of the pool before the total shutdown of the Spark Mining Pool. There was no notice of the miner moving its operations elsewhere. So it is expected that SparkPool is going to shut its mining operations down for good.
