China plans to limit power use by some bitcoin miners, people familiar with the matter said, a potential challenge to an industry whose energy-intensive computer networks enable transactions in the cryptocurrency.
The People’s Bank of China on Wednesday outlined the plan at a closed-door meeting, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because it was not public. They did not detail how authorities plan to enact the curbs.
Chinese officials are concerned that bitcoin miners have taken advantage of low power prices in some areas and affected normal electricity use in some cases, the people said.
Local officials have been asked to investigate the high consumption associated with the industry, they said.
The curbs will also involve other regulators such as China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which oversees the power supply.
While the proposed restrictions are unlikely to have a noticeable effect on transaction speeds, they highlight global concerns over the growing energy consumption of bitcoin miners.
The industry uses as much electricity as 3.4 million US homes, according to the Digiconomist Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index.
China is home to many of the world’s largest miners, some of whom have set up around hydroelectric facilities in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.
“This may have contributed to bitcoin coming off its daily highs,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at online trading firm OANDA Corp in London. “Electricity usage certainly appears to be a significant challenge for the cryptocurrency in the years ahead.”
Bitcoin, which surged 15-fold last year, on Wednesday pared gains and traded around US$14,900 yesterday.
Separately, Bank of America Corp’s Merrill Lynch told employees last month not to offer clients Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), one of the few financial instruments directly holding the digital coin, as the brokerage broadly eschews the virtual currency.
The firm — already known to be refraining from offering bitcoin futures contracts — told financial advisers not to pitch the fund or execute new client requests to buy into it, according to an excerpt of a Dec. 8 internal memo. The bank is willing to maintain existing positions in brokerage accounts, but not in fee-based advisory accounts.
Wall Street firms have broken ranks in recent weeks over whether to facilitate customers’ bets on bitcoin amid widespread concern that it is a bubble or that the cryptocurrency’s price is potentially susceptible to manipulation.
Bank of America is among those brokerages that have held off on offering the futures introduced last month by Cboe Global Markets Inc and CME Group Inc. The bank issued its policy on the trust days before the initial futures contracts began trading on Dec. 10 last year.
“The decision to close GBTC to new purchases is driven by concerns pertaining to suitability and eligibility standards of this product,” executives wrote in the memo.
The bank does not offer retail clients any other bitcoin-linked products, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified discussing company offerings.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in