Zhejiang province followed the policies of Inner Mongolia and Hainan who are working to contain mining activities in their regions after the government of China moved against cryptocurrency mining in the country last year.
China’s top economic planning agency, The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), in November 2021, proposed tough sanctions such as higher electricity tariffs on crypto miners in the country.
According to Yahoo News, the implementation of the policy by the Zhejiang branch of the agency has seen the commission announce that mining businesses in Zhejiang would pay extra RMB 0.5 ($0.79) per kilowatt hour. This was made public in a notice published by the agency on February 14.
The NDRC, Zhejiang branch’s notice also notified operators of grids in the region to pay special attention on crypto mining activities by strengthening their monitoring activities to ensure that the new policy is complied with.
The notice, dated Feb. 11 would have been sent to a number of sister agencies in China before being published to the public 3 days later.
Hainan Led The Way for Punitive Action Against Miners
The southern island of Hanan, last December introduced a higher electricity tariff for crypto miners. The new policy in the region demanded that companies involved in crypto mining activities pay an additional RMB 0.8 per kwh. This was reported by Chinese TV CCTV.
Inner Mongolia also introduced punitive measures on crypto miners in January. The region added a surcharge of RMB 1.0 per kWh starting last month.
China Times reported in an interview with an official of the Zhejiang government that crypto mining is still banned in the country, despite the increase in electricity tariff that has targeted miners. This is despite insinuations by internet users that the policy against miners such as higher electricity tariffs may be an indication that the government has soft-pedaled on its cryptocurrency mining ban.
Last September, the central government issued its strictest ban on cryptocurrency mining through a policy that its implementation would see an end to crypto mining by October this year. The September 24 policy published a list of industries that have been banned in the country with crypto mining featuring prominently. This is even as the government concurrently encouraged the country’s central bank, the Peoples’ Bank of China to go ahead with its CBDC.
Supplementing Ban With Higher Electricity Tariff
According to a release by China Times on Tuesday, the higher electricity tariff is meant to be part of the anti-mining policy in the Zhejiang province.
Also, authorities in the province of Shandong which borders Beijing, yesterday called on residents to report mining activities to authorities through dedicated communication channels.
Last October, the authorities in the province of Zhejiang busted GPU mining operations in a government facility by screening nearly 5000 IP addresses.
