China is now extending its anti-crypto stance to the mining industry as one of the Chinese government officials called for a crackdown on cryptocurrency mining.
In a Financial Stability Committee of the State Council meeting held on Friday, China’s Vice Premier, Liu He, specifically mentioned that the country will clamp down the crypto mining and trading activities.
“We should be more alert and look for potential risks,” Liu said, according to the meeting records. “We should crackdown on Bitcoin mining and trading activities and prevent individual risks from being passed to the whole society.”
This push back for the cryptocurrency industry from China came only a couple of days after the country’s government and two associations of Payments and the internet industry reiterated the illegality of the cryptocurrency transactions in the country.
Additionally, the impact of the fresh hostility can be seen in the cryptocurrency spot markets as Bitcoin prices hover around $37,000, which is down from the $41,000 peak achieved after Wednesday’s crash.
Apart from Bitcoin, the entire crypto market took a step backward.
The Bitcoin Mining Hub
Crypto exchanges are banned in China, but the country is still one of the largest Bitcoin mining hubs. Though the exact magnitude of the industry is not known, some estimates put the share of Chinese crypto mining at around 70 percent. However, this figure is believed to have decreased with many international markets attracting crypto miners.
Now, any crackdown on the existing Chinese crypto mining markets might heavily impact the overall cryptocurrency industry, which attracted a ton of institutional players from western countries.
