Chinese authorities continue to crack down on cryptocurrency mining as a city in Sichuan province has reportedly halted local Bitcoin (BTC) mining farms. Authorities in Ya’an City, a prefecture-level city in the western part of Sichuan province, have ordered local Bitcoin mining operations to shut down for examination, Chinese financial publication Sina Finance reported Friday. Citing an anonymous source from Chinese news agency PA News, the report said that it is unclear when or whether miners will restart mining operations. According to Chinese crypto blogger Colin Wu, the latest decision will impact major Bitcoin mining farms in Sichuan, which is …

Environmental concerns regarding the energy-intensive, proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism that Bitcoin (BTC) uses to produce new coins and verify transactions have been front and center lately. Debates regarding Bitcoin’s energy use particularly surged following a tweet sent out by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in May saying that his company would no longer accept Bitcoin payments due to the network’s “increasingly rapid use of fossil fuels.” Since then, a number of ways Bitcoin mining companies could go green have been discussed, many of which include using 100% renewable energy sources. For example, El Salvador president Nayib Bukele recently disclosed plans for a …

Estonian technology conglomerate Burfa is turning to Bitmain to supply key cryptocurrency mining infrastructure to its Narva-based data center, offering a glimpse into the arms race underway for high-performance computing resources. The $26-million agreement will allow Burfa to double its data center capacity and secure a steady supply of processing equipment over the coming months. The industrial sector is facing an acute shortage of specialized GPUs and SSDs as more of these resources get gobbled up by crypto-intensive firms that have ramped up Bitcoin (BTC) mining during the bull market. Burfa will start receiving the new equipment as early as …

The recent crackdown on crypto mining in China has seen concerns expressed over the potential impact a hashrate migration could have on Texas’ unreliable electricity market, as an increasing number of dislocated miners eye the Lone Star State. Texas’ abundant sources of renewable energy and highly deregulated power grid make the state an obvious choice for migrating miners from China and elsewhere, with 20% of Texan electricity being generated by wind as of 2019. Speaking to CNBC, Brandon Arvanaghi, a former security engineer at crypto exchange Gemini, predicted Texas will see “a dramatic shift over the next few months” as …

A bill which would have required miners in New York to halt operations for three years as part of an apparent effort to slow the environmental impact of crypto has been defeated in the state legislature. New York Senate Bill 6486 failed to pass the state assembly today after lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled state senate approved the legislation earlier this week. The bill was aimed at establishing “a moratorium on the operation of cryptocurrency mining centers” while experts considered the environmental impact of mining, particularly those backed by fossil fuels. According to a Connecticut-based National Public Radio affiliate, the International …

While El Salvador adopts Bitcoin as legal tender, one Dutch official blasted the cryptocurrency, calling for an urgent blanket ban. Pieter Hasekamp, director of the Dutch Bureau for Economic Analysis under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, published an essay entitled “The Netherlands must ban bitcoin.” In line with the essay’s title, Hasekamp lists a wide list of reasons why the Dutch government must enforce an immediate total ban on mining, trading and holding Bitcoin (BTC). According to the official, this could cause the price to plummet because Bitcoin “has no intrinsic value and is only valuable because …

The Bitcoin Mining Council made a formal debut on Thursday as the debate regarding the environmental impact of the digital asset intensifies. The Bitcoin Mining Council describes itself as a “voluntary and open forum of Bitcoin miners committed to the network and its core principles.” Its mandate is to promote transparency, endorse good practices, and foster Bitcoin education according to the official website. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor is one of the founding members, who posted a call to arms on his Twitter feed on Thursday. The Bitcoin Mining Council is a voluntary and open forum of Bitcoin miners committed to …

This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations. This week, following a tumultuous few weeks of regulation, the Bitcoin world’s focus shifted to Miami and Latin America. Searches for Bitcoin on China’s most popular social media app WeChat stabilized between 1 million and 3 million per day, a stark difference from the peaks of over 10 million that were seen in late May. Weibo and Baidu half pulls the plug Baidu, China’s dominant search engine, restricted …

Seattle-based mining software company Luxor has closed a Series A funding round led by institutional Bitcoin technology and financial services firm NYDIG. Luxor announced the $5 million funding round on June 9, adding that NYDIG will collaborate with Luxor on a number of mining-related ventures and hashrate-based products. Also participating in the equity round were mining companies Blockware Solutions, Celsius Network, DPO, Navier, and Supplybit. A number of angel investors along with Bitnomial, Hodl Capital, and Routemaster also participated. According to the announcement, Luxor and NYDIG aim to help grow the North American mining industry with Luxor working on making …

A proposed crypto mining ban calling for a forced three-year hiatus on all mining operations in New York has been watered down — and will now allow green projects. The bill passed in the senate on June 8, and has now been referred to the state assembly. If the bill is passed in the assembly, it will be delivered to Governor Andrew Cuomo to either approve or veto the proposed legislation. The initial New York Senate Bill 6486A sought to halt all crypto mining for three years in order to conduct environmental impact reviews on mining operations in the tri-state …

Nayib Bukele’s plans for crypto in El Salvador are still in motion, with the president now calling for a geothermal power company to make certain facilities available to Bitcoin miners. In a Wednesday tweet from Bukele, the president said he would be instructing Mynor Gil, the president of the state-owned electrical company LaGeo, to facilitate Bitcoin (BTC) mining “with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy” from the country’s volcanoes. The firm operates the only two geothermal power plants in El Salvador based in the regions of Ahuachapán and Berlín, with announced plans to construct new facilities in …

The cost of using the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains is on the rapid decline, as evidenced by a 93%–95% reduction in average transaction fees over the past couple of months. Fees are paid to the miners who process transactions on a typical proof-of-work blockchain. The size of the fee depends on the size of the transaction in bytes and how many transactions a coin has gone through in the past (as these need to be checked every time a coin is moved). Supply and demand for space also dictate the size of a transaction fee since blockchains have limited capacity. …