Bitcoin mining rebranding

[Lens]

It all began with China in 2021 when a total crackdown was issued in China. Recently, there are calls for rebranding of the bitcoin mining process . This is necessary because of the danger in the Carbon emissions from the bitcoin mining.

 

[Flower]

There is indeed a lot of rebranding in Bitcoin mining sector because miners are becoming environmental-friendly

 

[Nomad]

Maybe the word rebranding is not right. However, I also truly believe that Bitcoin mining operations should seriously think about energy consumption. Bitcoin mining consumes so much energy that if not used, the energy can be used to light an entire continent. I think bitcoin mining should use renewal energy instead of fossil fuel.

 

[Riberet19]

I don't understand what this thread is referring to, China banned Bitcoin mining on different occasions not only in 2021, it seems that they did it more to manipulate the market than because of carbon emissions, but it is true that the environmental problem is something that the Bitcoin protocol and its mining still need to be solved.

 

[linux.poet]

China banned Bitcoin mining on different occasions not only in 2021, it seems that they did it more to manipulate the market than because of carbon emissions,

No, the mining ban was in 2021. They banned cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017.

Meanwhile, in 2017, the PBOC banned the operations of cryptocurrency exchanges within China. (The 2017 ban did not go so far as to forbid the ownership or mining of cryptocurrency, which the 2021 ban finally prohibits.) Although China did not cite capital flight as a reason for its cryptocurrency restrictions in 2017, Chinese authorities did place additional restrictions on overseas investments by Chinese companies that same year. In some ways, the 2017 restrictions on cryptocurrency exchanges in China can be seen as the harbinger of the subsequent tightening of outward investment of Chinese companies that year.

(emphasis mine)

Source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/01/what-s-behind-china-s-cryptocurrency-ban/

That source speculates that the crypto ban was meant to control something called "capital flight", which is the citizens' ability to take their money and buy foreign currency with it. I think that has to do with the fact that the PRC doesn't want its citizens to flee the country and go elsewhere - they want to keep them under their thumbs, so to speak.

Perhaps what the OP was referring to is the idea of rebranding cryptocurrency mining to something else in order to avoid detection by the Chinese government. It's hard to regulate cryptocurrency, and the leading crypto exchange, Binance, still does 90 billion worth of crypto business there in a month:

Almost two years later, users traded $90 billion of cryptocurrency-related assets in China in a single month, according to internal figures viewed by The Wall Street Journal and current and former employees. The transactions made China Binance’s biggest market by far, accounting for 20% of volume worldwide, excluding trades made by a subset of very large traders.

China’s importance for Binance is openly discussed internally, according to the current and former employees. And despite the ban, the exchange’s investigations team works closely with Chinese law enforcement to detect potential criminal activity among the more than 900,000 active users in the country, according to some of the current and former employees.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/new...-billion-of-business-there-anyway/ar-AA1eFgs6

Since China has inexpensive electricity, it's been a prime location for miners to set up. But the Chinese government did address environmental concerns in terms of shutting it down.

China's National Development and Reform Commission said it will work to cut off financial support and electricity supply for mining, which it said spawns risks and hampers carbon neutrality goals.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/china...-crackdown-cryptocurrency-trading-2021-09-24/

Anyway, I wonder why no one has set up an off-grid solar crypto mining unit. Perhaps the up-front investment is prohibitive, but you can get solar panels for about $20 USD at Harbor Freight tools here in the U.S. The big expense would be for the computers and the graphics cards. Maybe you would need a bigger solar bank and batteries than the Harbor Freight panels to run a mining computer around the clock.

 

[Riberet19]

No, the mining ban was in 2021. They banned cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017.

Right, it was in 2021, I just recap, in fact what I was thinking about is what happened in 2014, and I associated it with China and the ban i don't know why, but what happened was the fall of the cryptocurrency exchange MT.gox, thanks for the correction