China has told its state-owned enterprises to get out of cryptocurrency mining and is considering imposing punitive measures in the form of higher power prices on companies that continue to defy a government ban as bitcoin trades near record highs.
The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission plans to crack down on industrial-scale bitcoin mining, as well as any involvement by state companies in the activity, Meng Wei (孟瑋), a spokeswoman for the nation’s chief economic planner, told a news conference yesterday.
Last week, the commission held a special meeting on the issue, and it is putting a bigger onus on provinces and municipalities to investigate and clean up state-owned enterprises involved in mining.
Beijing has this year cracked down hard on bitcoin miners, saying that they are to blame for everything from energy waste to deadly coal mining accidents as the government strives to meet its carbon-neutral goals.
Concern over the country’s power supplies for the upcoming winter season was one reason for an intensified campaign against miners in September, when officials were said to have gone after those who tried to disguise themselves as data researchers and storage facilities to stay in business.
Since then, coal prices have collapsed, making the effects of punitive prices on the cost of electricity less clear.
Cryptocurrencies yesterday fell, with bitcoin sliding toward US$60,000 and ether touching one of its lowest levels this month. Bitcoin has more than doubled this year, while ether is up about sixfold.
Bitcoin, the largest digital token, was yesterday down almost 5 percent to US$60,971.56 in Hong Kong trading, while second-ranked ether slid as much as 6.8 percent.
Global crypto market capitalization has dropped about 7 percent in the past 24 hours to US$2.8 trillion, tracker CoinGecko said.
“We’ve seen the US infrastructure bill get signed, which has initiated a sell-off from traders who are concerned about regulation and taxation,” said Hayden Hughes, chief executive officer of Alpha Impact, a platform that allows investors to copy the strategies of other crypto traders.
He also cited concerns about China continuing its regulatory crackdown.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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