Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

Last month, the Chinese government announced a crackdown on all financial transactions involving cryptocurrencies and issued a countrywide ban on cryptocurrency mining, the energy-consuming process by which cryptocurrency tokens are produced.

When the news broke, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell to around $41,000 before recovering by the end of the trading day. Until the Chinese government imposed the ban, the country was the powerhouse in Bitcoin mining, with around 70% of global Bitcoin mining power. Now, cryptocurrency miners in China are flocking to neighboring Kazakhstan, Russia or North America to find refuge.

The Government crackdown comes at a time when the country’s central bank has been testing the electronic Chinese yuan (e-CNY), the nation`s digital currency that has been slowly introduced to Chinese society through a lottery system. The bank shared a notice calling out Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH) for being issued by nonmonetary authorities.

China’s e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group…

NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — The price of Bitcoin climbed above the USD 60,000 mark on Friday as investors and traders anticipate that the U.S. regulators will clear the first Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund. According to a report by CNBC, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF is scheduled to debut at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, and experts believe the SEC unlikely to object to the product. “The ETF news is being priced in with the market expecting an approval on Monday. This is driving the price up,” Vijay Ayyar, Head of Asia Pacific at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, told CNBC. As a result of the crypto boom that occurred earlier this year, many companies and organizations have become noticeably more open to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. ISW Holdings Inc. (OTC: ISWH), Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT), Sphere 3D Corp. (NASDAQ: ANY), SOS Limited (NYSE: SOS), HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: HVBT) 

Meanwhile, the U.S. has become one of the main hubs of the Bitcoin mining market. This is in large part due to the Chinese government’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies. Local agencies, including the country’s securities regulator and…

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

China was once a burgeoning hub for digital currencies, but the country recently came out against cryptocurrency. With transactions and mining banned, officials are on the hunt for illegal crypto operations, and extreme power usage often points the way. As reported by Bloomberg, two provinces have found that a substantial chunk of illegal mining was happening at public institutions. Naturally, the government aims to put a stop to that. 

As recently as last year, China accounted for the majority of Bitcoin hash rates. Since then, mining has moved to other regions, and the drop has been precipitous since the Chinese government began its crackdown on all cryptos. After officially banning crypto, the government instructed provinces to call in loans, cancel favorable tax rates, and investigate abnormal power usage. That last order…

The operation in the quiet town of Rockdale was part of an already bustling US business — now boosted by Beijing’s intensified crypto crackdown that has pushed the industry west.

“There’s a lot of competitors coming into Texas because they are seeing the same thing (as) when we came here,” said Chad Everett Harris, CEO of miner Whinstone, which operates the Rockdale site owned by US company Riot Blockchain. 

Figures released Wednesday by the University of Cambridge showed that activity in the United States more than doubled in the four months to the end of August, increasing the market share held by the world’s biggest economy to 35.4 percent.

“China’s bitcoin mining ban was basically an unintentional gift to the US,” he said. “Thanks to their ban an entire sector migrated to North America — along with innovation, labor and machines.”

“If you’re going to make long-term investments and accumulate wealth in a country, you want to have some confidence that it’s not going to be…

The Chinese government has been historically unfriendly to cryptocurrencies, and it recently made its harshest anti-crypto move yet to crack down on virtual coins.

China had banned cryptocurrency trading services within the country in May, but international exchanges continued to operate, prompting authorities to tighten restrictions further. In late September, 11 Chinese government entities announced the new crackdown, including the Chinese Central Bank and the National Development and Reform Commission.

The new regulations made all cryptocurrency transactions completely illegal including buying and selling tokens or derivatives as well as cryptocurrency mining. International cryptocurrency exchange activities were prohibited from serving customers in Mainland China, and new measures were put in place to shut down websites and restrict the ability of investors to pay for coins.

Recently, Elon Musk, the Space-X co-founder and a noted proponent of cryptocurrencies, weighed in on why China may have taken this action.

After the bluster, the real Chinese crypto crackdown is set to start – with controllers, courts and law requirement agencies currently seeing how to execute the particulars of last month’s tumultuous joint declaration cryptoasset-related activities.The watershed affirmation was authored by the focal People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and approached organizations in the nation to take punitive measures against crypto-trading clients. It likewise cautioned overseas platforms focusing on Chinese clients that they could confront penalties.

However, the firms appear to have made their decisions due to the fact that the PBoC’s co-signatories were heavy-hitting enforcers with real power to dish out punishment: namely, the likes of the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security.

Similar statements have been made in the past, but the crypto mining, hardware and exchanges industries appear to have been genuinely spooked by the joint declaration – to the point whereby a number of prominent crypto players promptly closed down their businesses. The exchange giant Huobi, reports claimed, evacuated its staff overseas a week before…