Authorities in the Hebei province of China have reported initiated a campaign against cryptocurrency trading and mining. The region’s cyberspace administration reported that a number of government agencies have come together for preventing the use of computing power in the region in crypto activities deemed illegal by the government.
Located in Northern China, Hebei has become the latest province in the country to undertake measures for clamping down on crypto mining and trading. This campaign was launched for a variety of reasons ranging from financial and environmental concerns to considerations of national security.
The province surrounds Beijing and state-run companies and government agencies in the region have been asked to check their computing system in order to shut down the use of their computing power for minting digital coins by the end of the month. In addition, research institutes and local universities have also been told to scale down the capacity of their computer systems, so they match their academic needs only.
The telecom and internet office in Hebei are also collaborating with the provincial departments of financial supervision, public security, education and communication, amongst others. Moreover, they have also joined forces with the People’s Bank of China’s Shijiazhuang branch for taking action against mining and trading activities related to virtual currencies.
Colin Wu, the Chinese crypto journalist known as ‘Wu Blockchain’ spread this news on Twitter on Tuesday. According to the cyberspace administration of Hebei, crypto mining uses a massive amount of energy, which is against the ‘carbon neutral’ goal of the country.
The agency said that cryptocurrency’s transaction and exchange are highly disruptive to the financial order of the nation and there is a big financial risk as well. The watchdog warned that the proliferation of virtual currency will affect social and economic development in the People’s Republic and also become a threat to national security.
The current campaign will end on September 30th and after that, the government agencies in the province will regularly monitor the situation. They will impose penalties on anyone who illegally trades and mines cryptocurrencies, beginning from October.
The cyberspace administration of the province also said that financial and internet regulators should improve their collection of reports regarding such cases from the public. Crypto trading was banned in China back in 2017, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that Beijing authorities decided to interfere with crypto mining.
The State Council announced in May this year that there will be a crackdown against crypto-related activities after President Xi Jinping pledged that they would achieve carbon neutrality within the next four decades. Mining operations in a number of provinces have been affected due to the government offensive, which include Yunnan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Anhui and Qinghai.
Last week, Gansu is another region in Northwestern China that initiated its crackdown. A closure notice was sent to the province in July by the State Grid Corporation of China for its crypto mining facilities. It is clear that the country has no intention of changing their stance regarding crypto mining any time soon.
