The time is May 25, 2021. Wang Li was wearing thick medical protective clothing and was in the international flight terminal, fully armed and waiting for takeoff.
After all, the overseas epidemic situation has not yet stabilized, and the international terminal of Nuoda University seems empty at this time. No one will go abroad at this time, unless it is necessary, such as Wang Li's situation.
As a staff member of Bitmain, a well-known domestic mining machine manufacturer, Wang Li did not expect that one day he would "ride thousands of miles alone" and go to a foreign country alone, just to find a suitable land for a new mine.
Sitting in the waiting hall, he thought a lot in his mind, but couldn't figure out what to do, so he just posted a "shutdown for 16 hours" in Moments.
It all goes back a few days ago, to an ordinary Friday night.
At 10:00 pm on May 21, the Financial Services Commission of the State Council announced that it would crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading, and resolutely prevent the transmission of individual risks to the social field. This is the first time that the State Council has explicitly cracked down on virtual currency mining.
As soon as the news came out, the currency circle was in an uproar.
If the previous "Shutdown of Bitcoin Mine in Inner Mongolia" can be regarded as a local action, "Sichuan Xiaonayuan Power Outage" can be interpreted as a guarantee of life and production electricity. At present, Bitcoin miners really can only give up their luck and find a solution in advance Plan, wait for the boots to hit the ground.
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A "wandering" may be the "initial gene" engraved in China's bitcoin mining industry.
In China, which has advantages in natural resources, the abundant hydropower in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, and the abundant thermal power in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are favored by bitcoin miners.
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Weibo related comments
Among them, the wet season is also considered to be the "gold rush period" for miners. The wet season is generally during the rainy season or spring when the temperature continues to rise. At this time, the water in the river is abundant and lasts for a long time. The abundant water power brings more and cheaper electricity. For miners, this means lower costs and higher profits.
Zhihu netizen "Mine Director" talked about the high water season, saying that many miners like this season and hope to spend less electricity to make their profits greater. This year's wet season starts on May 25th, and miners have already shipped their machines to Sichuan to select addresses in advance.
However, with the continuous debate on the pollution of the environment by Bitcoin mining, the popularity of the ESG (Environment Social and Governance) movement, and the shortage of electricity in southern China, the attitude of national regulators towards mining has also changed.
Since February this year, Inner Mongolia has begun to clear virtual currency mining, requiring a comprehensive cleanup and shutdown of virtual currency mining projects. All mines will be withdrawn before the end of April 2021, and new virtual currency mining projects are strictly prohibited. On May 25, the Inner Mongolia Development and Reform Commission once again released the "Eight Measures on Resolutely Combating and Punishing Virtual Currency "Mining" Behaviors (Draft for Comment)", proposing different combating and punitive strategies according to the eight types of objects.
In Sichuan, where hydropower is abundant, in order to solve the problem of "abandoning water and electricity", a demonstration zone for hydropower consumption industry was built, and many virtual currency mining companies settled in it. According to Mint, the founder of Wonderful Capital, the power supply in Sichuan Xiaoneng Park has been cut off at present, and it may not be restored until the policy is clarified.
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Second, when the mining machine stops running, this change is directly reflected in the computing power.
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BTC network computing power trend
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Mining Pool Hashrate Changes on May 27
Jiang Zhuoer, the founder of Leibit Mining Pool, told Rhythm that their mines are mainly located in Xinjiang and Sichuan. There are currently no mines in Inner Mongolia, so the clearance policy in Inner Mongolia has little impact on them.
When it comes to the power outages in the Sichuan Consumption Park, Jiang Zhuoer believes that the main reason is that Sichuan has less rainfall this year and the power consumption is tight. "But our new models are basically in Xinjiang. In Sichuan, there are only old models such as Ant S9 and Avalon A8, and most of them have just been taken out of the warehouse and have not been turned on yet, so the impact is not great."
The other side of the decline in domestic computing power is the increasing computing power of foreign mining pools.
At present, domestic computing power may only account for 50% of the global total computing power. On the contrary, the proportion of computing power in the United States rose to about 12%.
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China's computing power accounted for in the world in April 2020
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Three The flow of computing power represents the choice of big miners.
"Currently, large mine owners with their own mining machines in China are basically looking for opportunities to go overseas while waiting for the policy to be implemented." Wang Wenguang, head of the mine business of Bit Deer Group, told Rhythm that this is currently the largest mining service team in China. , has already perceived the emotions of the big miners.
“Currently, the mining income is still considerable, so their current state is to dig, wait for the policy, and seek to go abroad at the same time.” Wang Wenguang said.
According to various verifications by Rhythm, domestic mining companies such as Bitmain, Bit Deer, and Bicah (a mining service under LeBit Mining Pool) have all started plans to go abroad.
Industry insiders close to Bitmain told Rhythm that before Bitmain’s “separation”, domestic mines were mainly assigned to Ketuan Zhan (Chairman of Bitmain), and foreign mines were owned by Wu Jihan (Chairman of BitDeer). Therefore, Bitmain's mines are currently mainly distributed in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan and other places in China.
After the policy of the State Council was promulgated, Bitmain required the sales of mining machines to go overseas to find mines to solve domestic problems. "At present, these sales have gone to North America, the Middle East, Central Asia and other places. They are fully armed and vaccinated. It is not clear when they will be able to return." The person said.
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Where are the four sea routes? At present, there are mainly two major directions: North America and the Middle East.
Wang Wenguang told Rhythm that in the North American region represented by the United States and Canada, the local policies are relatively stable and the legal system is relatively sound. There are already many large mining companies stationed there, but the overall cost of mines in North America is too high. A 25% tariff is imposed.
Another relatively inexpensive option is Kazakhstan. The region has abundant energy resources, is closer to China, has lower manpower and construction costs, and far lower tariffs than the United States. However, the degree of rule of law is not high, the business environment needs to be improved, and, like China, policy is the biggest risk.
Mint also told Rhythm that in North America, Canada may have a greater advantage in establishing mines than the United States. Canadian mines are mainly concentrated in Ontario and Quebec. Ontario is rich in natural gas resources, and Canada only has a 5% tariff.
Currently, there are two types of people who choose to go abroad.
One is to directly go abroad to build a mine. Wang Wenguang revealed to Rhythm that due to the high local equipment and labor costs, the cost of building a mine in North America is about six to ten times that of China. In Kazakhstan's relatively cheap environment, the overall cost of building a mine is roughly the same as that in China.
The other is to transport mining machines abroad for hosting. But it is not easy to transport a large number of mining machines abroad.
Mint told Rhythm that the cost of mining machines going overseas includes tariffs, mining machine freight, operation and maintenance costs, labor costs and time costs. For example, it takes half a year at the fastest to rebuild a mine in Canada, but only half a month in China.
At present, Chinese mining machines can go abroad according to the general electronic commodity export process, but the door for mining machines to return to China has been closed. Wang Wenguang revealed that in order to prevent e-waste from flowing into the country, China currently does not accept second-hand electronic goods to enter the country. It is very difficult to return to the country after the mining machines are out.
In addition, mining is a relatively new industry in the world. "No other country has a mature supply chain and infrastructure like China, and the maintenance and accessories of foreign mines will be more troublesome," Mint said.
"Even though the foreign mining environment is not as mature as China's, going overseas has become a trend. Domestic computing power will continue to decline, while foreign computing power will continue to rise. This trend is irreversible." Wang Wenguang said.
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5. When mining companies and large miners faced difficulties and went abroad to find new homes, the high cost of going to sea discouraged managed mines and small miners.
People who stay in the country don't have many options.
Some mine owners choose to further migrate within the country, moving their mines to other low-cost areas such as Xinjiang and Yunnan, and wait and see the detailed rules of the policy. Laoji is one of them. He has been operating in the mining industry for many years, with a steady and low-key style. He thinks he has seen ups and downs, but he is also confused by this policy change.
"The situation this time has completely exceeded expectations. When the Inner Mongolia policy was introduced, I was not worried because my mines are all in Sichuan and use hydropower. But this time it seems to be a big game. If hydropower mining is also one size fits all , it is very difficult for miners.”
In a daze, Lao Ji had no good solution but to wait and see.
"Our machines are all physical assets. We invested tens of millions in the early stage. How can we disband them casually, and we don't know the situation abroad. Now we can only continue digging while there is still electricity, and wait for the policy to be implemented." Talk about the future. , Lao Ji was quite helpless.
Some people also choose to leave the mining industry and resell the mining machines. Before the release of the State Council's policy on May 21, Rhythm found that some miners had sensed the drastic changes in the industry through the attitude of the local government and sold mines in Moments.
Changes in mines also affect the price of mining machines. A senior person in the mining circle told Rhythm that most of the domestic mining machine manufacturers were "second-hand dealers" before. With the relocation of a large number of mine owners and the sale of mining machines, the market for mining machines began to cool down around mid-May, and the market for second-hand mining machines also began to cool down. Start dropping prices.
However, Jiang Zhuoer is still relatively optimistic about the survival of small domestic miners.
He believes that if the current domestic stock mining machines have the conditions, they can continue to mine. In the future, when the policy is implemented, the worst case scenario is that all mines in the country will be shut down, and the mining machines will flow into the hands of small and medium-sized miners, and even family miners.
"In 2014 and 2015, home miners appeared on a large scale. They just found a warehouse to run dozens of machines, or put a few mining machines at home, which could increase their income by thousands of yuan or tens of thousands of yuan every month. Some people must continue I dug it." Jiang Zhuoer said.
Another important question for domestic miners is when will the boots hit the ground? Will the policy be one size fits all?
Mint believes that the policy requires preventing individual risks from being transmitted to the social field. The main impacts are cloud computing power, disguised fund-raising, and illegal fund-raising mining products and platforms. Cloud computing power platforms may face full withdrawal. The service platform will also face rectification.
"Currently, the Bitcoin mines in Sichuan and Yunnan are mainly clean energy mines, which use waste water to generate electricity, which meets the requirements of my country's carbon neutral policy. The mining process does not produce any waste water and waste gas, which is very environmentally friendly." She said. explain.
Mint appealed that it is necessary to moderately combat overheating, but a one-size-fits-all policy is not conducive to supervision. Many industrial chains have gone underwater, which has increased the difficulty of supervision.
Just as this article was about to be finalized, a netizen in Rhythm Moments revealed new news, "I heard that the big miners were called to a meeting to investigate, and the policy has not been one-size-fits-all. The miners' worst plan for the consumption of electricity in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan is The high water season has been dug.” The credibility of the news is unclear, but it represents the earnest expectations of the miners.
This morning, the Sichuan Supervision Office of the National Energy Administration held a small-scale research symposium on virtual currency mining. As an important province for clean energy mining, Sichuan’s regulatory rules basically foretell the overall regulatory attitude in China.
Where should Chinese bitcoin miners go before the crossroads, and when their wandering will stop, the answer may be revealed.
Acknowledgments: 0x 33 also contributed to this article.
