Chinese officials from the city of Ya’an in Sichuan have come out in support of using locally produced hydropower for cryptocurrency mining operations.

On April 20 the Municipal Economic and Information Bureau and the Municipal Development and Reform Commission of Ya’an announced an opinion statement on local crypto mining implementation. The document encourages the consumption of hydropower-generated electricity for mining operations.

The document stated that the municipality will build a "hydropower consumption demonstration zone" and "big data industry gathering area." Officials believe the province will thus attract investment and development in blockchain companies.

Cryptocurrency mining in China

China is known to be a major player in the cryptocurrency mining industry. According to a report released at the end of 2019, Chinese Bitcoin miners were at the time responsible for as much as 66% of the global hash rate, with 54% coming from the province of Sichuan.

Still — after the coronavirus pandemic struck the country — China recently started losing ground in the cryptocurrency mining space. As Cointelegraph reported earlier this month, Baite — the former top Chinese Bitcoin mining pool — decided to leave the Bitcoin mining business.

Furthermore, aging hardware is also taking its toll on the local mining enterprises, Recently the Chinese publication Securities Daily reported that over 40 mining operations were forced to stop their activity due to the fact that the now-old Antminer S9s Bitcoin mining ASICS were no longer profitable to operate.