(Updated) Chinese Central Bank Hosts Closed-Door Meeting on Electricity Usage of Bitcoin Miners

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) recently had a closed-door meeting on the use of electricity for bitcoin mining. The legitimacy of the news has been confirmed by Tencent Finance.

**Update January 3, 2018, 10 pm EDT: There’s a recent conflicting report with this story coming from the publication Caixin that details the alleged ‘closed-door meeting’ held by the PBOC never took place. Nor are they asking to shut down mining fields before a deadline. The government neither bans nor supports bitcoin mining. Put simply, the authorities will stop offering any preferential policies on power usage, land use and taxes. **

The PBOC Investigates the Power Usage of Bitcoin Mining

Tencent Finance said that China’s central bank recently had a closed-door meeting to discuss how to regulate bitcoin mining. Two sources reveal that the authority doesn’t plan to shut down mining farms, but to regulate the power usage of bitcoin miners.

A Sichuan-based bitcoin mining farm owner said that the local government is investigating a list of bitcoin mining data centers in the area.

Governments at all levels were asked to clarify the location and numbers of bitcoin miners and report relative information to the monetary authority.

He added that the move is currently targeting small-scale mining farms. “Large mining farms are still operating as usual — But future development of bitcoin mining might be limited.”

Bitmain CEO Wu Jihan told a cryptocurrency publication Bishijie that bitcoin mining is helpful to local economy. “The PBOC is working with local governments to curb electricity theft in small bitcoin farms. Large scalWue mining farms will not be affected.”

But a famous financial commentator Xiao Lei believed that since the government has clarified they don’t support bitcoin mining, they will gradually take actions to rule it out.

Chinese Press Are Talking About a Bitcoin ‘Bubble’

China Economic Weekly, the official newspaper subsidiary for the People’s Daily reported on the first working day of 2018 the government acted “with an iron fist” to ban initial coin offerings back in September for financial stability. The next day, China’s People’s Daily published a story saying that the discussion over a Bitcoin bubble is necessary.

The so-called advantages such as scarcity, fidelity, strong liquidity, transparency and decentralization are only disguises for speculation. How come bitcoin price rallied hard in 2017 while it hasn’t made any improvement over the years?

The official press of the Chinese government believes that investors try to make bitcoin look mysterious by highlighting its anonymous creator and bragging about its free liquidity. “the current tumble is a warning signal,” said the newspaper. “Investors must remain cautious of these pump-and-dump schemes.”

What do you think of the closed-door meeting and press’s weighing in on bitcoin? Leave your comments below.

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