The People's Government Office of Yingjiang County, Yunnan Province has issued a strict decree prohibiting hydroelectric power plants from illegally supplying electricity to cryptocurrency mining companies.
Dismantling of equipment
The notice states that Yingjiang townships and farms must immediately notify all hydroelectric power plants in their jurisdiction of a power outage to cryptocurrency mining companies. They also have to remove the mining machines from the territory of the power plant by August 24 and dismantle all the big data workshops on their own. If the mining workshops are not dismantled in a timely manner, the government will organize the relevant departments to force the dismantling and report this to the State Energy Bureau.
The notice also requires all Yingjiang townships and farms to strengthen supervision over the dismantling of large hydropower plants and report this to the County Development and Reform Bureau by August 25. The county's Bureau of Development and Reform is also stepping up law enforcement efforts to completely eliminate the illegal supply of electricity to cryptocurrency miners.
Suppression of crypto mining
These measures are the latest in the struggle of the Chinese authorities with mining cryptocurrencies in the country. After the ban on the provision of payment services to providers offering their services to companies associated with cryptocurrencies, the authorities set their sights on mining cryptocurrencies.
Since then, Anhui, Sichuan, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and others have issued notices demanding a complete fix for the electricity consumption of cryptocurrency mining companies.
The Yunnan Provincial Energy Bureau previously said it would seriously investigate and punish the illegal activities of cryptocurrency mining companies. Some of these illegal activities include illegal reliance on generating companies, unauthorized access to electricity, evasion of national electricity transmission and distribution fees, funds, and extra profits.
Great interest in blockchain
While China is tough on the release of private cryptocurrencies, the country hopes to become the world's leading blockchain power by 2025. To do this, it suppresses private, external blockchains and promotes the development of its own blockchains. One way to achieve this goal is to integrate blockchain technology into key industries.
The Chinese state's recent engagement with e-commerce giant Alibaba illustrates this dichotomy. By banning financial institutions from dealing with crypto-currency companies, PBOC repeated this with Alipay and other companies. Now, however, with support from the Sichuan provincial government, Alipay's parent company, Alibaba, is offering NFTs on its online auction platform. It seems that companies can offer services related to cryptocurrencies, but only those that contribute to the achievement of the goals of the state.