Topic: CHINA Banning bitcoin: PBOC Says All Crypto-Related Transactions Are Illegal - page 2. (Read 897 times)

OK, then it isn’t about the price of coal “going double” starting since last year, but it’s about political decisions made because of some other political reason. I believe China would not have banned Bitcoin mining if it had not made that political decision. They expected it, and it wasn’t just another “attack on Bitcoin”.

There are aspects of your post that I agree with including that bitcoin miners are going to mine no matter if the energy costs are high, low, green or not green based on their own calculations, and so part of my point was just to assert that it is likely overall better for the overall energy infrastructure to have bitcoin miners in the mix and incentivizing the consumption of energy - even if they are perceived as consuming all the energy.. blah blah blah bullshit... and sure you seem to be arguing that bitcoin miners are leeches on the energy system... so we disagree about that.

Anyhow, it does seem quite apparent that bitcoin miners are going to attempt to gravitate towards where energy is cheapest - since they tend to be a lot more mobile than many other (probably the vast majority of) energy users.. so sometimes they will end up using various kinds of energy that is otherwise not able to be used by the users.. and having little costs because of having little value, and sure I understand that bitcoin miners are not exclusively using the low cost and inaccessible energy.  Sometimes they are using whatever energy they can because BTC prices are going up or whatever other incentives they might sometimes have to mine as many bitcoin as they can during a certain period of relatively low hashrate, for example. 

I am not going to go through your other various points and examples because they seem to be a mixed bag in which I agree with some aspects and disagree with other aspects, even though I believe that I had already sufficiently and adequately made many of my points in my earlier points, and I stand by those in the sense that I do not believe that your examples are negating nor contrary to my points, even if you seem to be arguing that they are.

Yes it, is quite true.


No, unfortunately, it's not working like that.
Balancing productions means you're taking 1 apple from the 4 apple pile and put it in the two apple pile. Bitcoin mining looks at the price per apple and eats two out of that pile if they are the cheapest, then it moves to the next two that are next by price.
There is no balancing when you're consuming a lot of the resources based on price.

If miners would only do this they would only mine during sunny and windy days but nobody is going to do so, what was happening in Sichuan was an exception, they built thousands of micro dams for one purpose and then they realized they could have just built the dam, not the powerplant, so they were left in the rainy season with a lot of extra power, the extra power that was gone when the rain stopped and miners would go back to good old Xinjiang and rely on coal. You can see that there was no balance, when energy was abundant bitcoin mining consumed the extra, when the rain stopped and there was no extra bitcoin mining still consumed, again, the cheapest.


One coal plant owner says that his energy is cheap is reliable, it runs 24/7 and it doesn't need subsidies from the government, while the sun is unreliable, panels are also polluting and it's costlier. The sun farm owner says that coal is polluting, coal will eventually run out, that solar panels don't pollute the atmosphere and that the technology will get better and cheaper. Should I throw about views from nuclear or hydro? Everyone is right in what they are saying, there is no perfect truth and no perfect good.

There are bad facts about mining, nobody can deny it, there are positives also, but the most important thing is that one should never equal bitcoin with bitcoin mining, Bitcoin is about decentralization, abut being your own bank, about a lot of things, bitcoin mining is a business. Nothing else! It's a mean business like everything else, and just like exchanges, wallets providers and everyone else involved in it draws its revenue from the bitcoin price, it has nothing to do with the foundation bitcoin was built on.

Musk and the others are businessmen, they tell people what they think from their own perspective and their own interest. Do you think bitcoin miners are angels? No f way*! For example, the so-called Bitcoin Mining Council was telling us how they will mine with green energy and so, what was Marathon doing? Well, investing millions in expanding a coal powerplant, and the only reason was the price, you can't compete with that, no solar farm will offer you 2 cents power, not even Bukele magic well that produces more than power than the next 5 biggest wells in the world will be able to do so.

And now back to the China thing.
The Chinese did a lot of bad moves, and unfortunately, bitcoin indeed was a victim or a sacrifice.
As you might know from the news, the US is trying to build a new NATO in the pacific, see the Aussie submarine deal for example, and China is not liking this, of course, so they did start banning and putting taxes on Australian goods and on coal, And then the shitshow started.

A coal mining accident (the one that wiped 30% of the hashrate in April), an immediate coal production cut, overestimating how much coal they can produce on their own, overestimating how easily they could get coal from other countries, European countries coming out of lockdowns and demand growing everywhere, manufacturing starting at full power and demanding energy and this happening during the rainy season when you have more hydro, so with things looking that black what would you do as a government?

Cut the things that will not trigger an avalanche in other sectors! Bitcoin mining fits it!
Cut the thing that you can't use as a political and economic tool! Bitcoin mining fits the criteria again!

When you're low on energy that you close factories, you start opening pits you've closed for environmental issues, you accord permits to mine for coal on every piece of land, what would you have chosen if you were in their position? Running a government is also a business, just like mining!

Ps, I own a few miners, they run probably on either coal or gas-produced energy, zero to the negative chance of it being green, I don't have nightmares for what I'm doing but I'm not going to lie and say that I'm doing it to protect the network or something like that, just like my parents aren't proudly marching in the street for feeding hundreds of people nor do they have remorse every night for running a pig farm that also involves, you know..killing. If I/we wouldn't do this others would do it, the result will be the same in the end.

Bitcoin is about freedom, bitcoin mining is about money.

A lot of displacements in the energy markets are "self-imposed":

• Coal shortages in China are self-imposed retaliation against a nasty neighbor.
• Gas shortage in Europe are a self-imposed choke as we chose to rely on the Russian friends to heat our houses
• Gas importance in Europe is a self-imposed choice because we self-imposed a ban on nuclear energy
• Cap and trade scheme are self-imposed costs on top of energy costs hindering enterprise competitivity

The common root of this is: Politics interfering with free markets.

Isn’t the “shortage” of coal in China self-inflicted? I believe they ordered to stop importing coal from some countries, but most of their supply are coming from Australia. It’s a political move, because China doesn’t want Australia to interfere in their claim of Taiwan and the regions in the South China Sea.

Unless everything we read in recent days is just a simple lie, the Chinese really have big problems with electricity supply, entire provinces are dark and power cuts will take at least 5-6 months. I wrote very clearly that the reason is a drastic increase in the price of coal (over 100%) and a reduction in production from hydro sources - if there is not enough energy for households and much-needed industry, it is no wonder that the Chinese first get rid of what really consumes a lot of energy, and on the other hand it is quite the opposite of their political ideology.

There is no need to link the “Bitcoin is bad for the environment” theory to what is currently happening in China, nor is the problem of crypto mining something that was decided 2 weeks ago. Crypto mining has only become a collateral victim of what was first (at least as far as I know) mentioned in 2011.


The concept of decentralized currency in a communist country was negatively marked 10 years ago, and it doesn't matter what the real reasons are, because communism is the complete opposite of what Bitcoin represents. Therefore, it was not a question of whether China would completely ban everything related to cryptocurrencies, but only a question of when it would do so.

My thoughts on this are as follows:

- It was already clear that China was not pro-bitcoin, and as such this was more of an re-iteration of ideas rather than a new ban.
- It has been done multiple times before without avail.
- The decentralization of the network means that bitcoin will survive this regardless of whether other countries follow suit.

Nothing to worry about.

This is not new to us again since the ban at this time has no serious effect on Bitcoin and crypto currency at large which simply mean that China is loosing it influence on Bitcoin as it use to be in the past. Though we understand that China cannot support Bitcoin or crypto currency mining since they are currently having power problem in the country but that alone should not be the main why they should ban all crypto currency activities in the country.

"It seems that the Chinese could not support crypto mining even if they wanted to, because as far as I could understand the situation was so bad that China asked Russia for help."

Do you really believe this above statement?

Just from my superficial understanding of bitcoin mining, it could provide incentives to smoothen out extremes and even contribute towards providing incentives for the harnessing of energy in remote places that could also end up subsidizing energy production in less remote places.  

In other words, I doubt that an automatic dismissal of bitcoin as being a positive force would be a proper conclusion.. but maybe you (or someone else) could explain why bitcoin would be a negative force in regards to energy production and consumption in an area in which energy problems exist?  By the way, I am suggesting to look at both production and consumption incentives rather than merely seeming to look at the consumption side and presuming production incentives to be constant... otherwise you appear to be spouting out superficial mainstream talking points about energy consumption being bad and presuming bitcoin also to be a bad consumptive thing and with little to no actual utility (or positive societal contribution).

Today I read that the situation in China in terms of electricity is quite bad and that the north of the country is particularly affected, and there are big problems in as many as 17 provinces across the country. The problem is that the price of coal has doubled since last year, and the Chinese authorities have frozen prices for households, which is why more and more companies are getting into big trouble. On the other hand, the south is affected by high heat and lack of rain, which has significantly reduced hydropower production.

It seems that the Chinese could not support crypto mining even if they wanted to, because as far as I could understand the situation was so bad that China asked Russia for help.

https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/coal-shortages-force-blackouts-across-china/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/09/30/china-asks-russia-boost-electricity-amid-widespread-blackouts/

The Chinese government declared 2017 Bitcoin illegal and banned cryptocurrency trading and use. That year, the Chinese government banned the exchange and expelled it from the country. But it's a matter of laughter A few months later, the Chinese government again recognized Bitcoin.

However I don't think it all matters anymore because at exact 4 years ago, China's crypto crackdown sent bitcoin down 30%. In fact, I think now that China are finally pulling the plug and no longer able to "ban it again" is one of the awesome news I've ever heard.

“Tyrannical” does NOT automatically mean “Cruel”, tyrranical simply means dictatorial, which is truly what the system the Chinese people is under.

Plus the “value” of Bitcoin in China is not only in financial terms, but in protecting an individual’s freedom/human rights.

I could say the same although tyrannical seem a bit off, if they're tyrannical then they're cruel to their own people but the only problem is that they're almost close to that since they still have concentration camps and they enforce heavy surveillance. That is also my indicator to accumulate more bitcoin because I know that when China gets into something like this, the market will eventually go up.

Then the China FUD is a good indicator that Bitcoin is still being used in China, and its activity is still at high/healthy levels because the government still gives it some of its time to “BAN” it. Hahaha.

Well... if you are a Chinese citizen, then do that at your own risk. There were reports from Canada that students from China, who used social media from their mobile phone to spread "Free Tibet" message were called up by the embassy and told to stop their activity. All their posts were anonymous, but somehow the CCP found out what they were doing. If they can do this to someone residing in Canada, don't you think that they will be able to do much more to those who are residing in China? If I were in your place, I would just stop my crypto activity at least until I could get out of China.

China will never stop banning bitcoin until all the people who are secretly involve in it will stop from doing so. But that won't happen for sure. Bitcoin is becoming more irresistible these days so people will definitely find ways on how to continue its transactions even if it means doing it in some neighboring countries. And this continuous banning of bitcoin will even create more opportunities to those who are not yet involved into bitcoin because they will start to be curious on it and might eventually develop their interest investing in bitcoin. Well then, China will be more consistent in hating and banning bitcoin.

That will 100% be true after this ban. The only way to move money away from the dictator was crypto and people were using that a lot. Now that it is fully banned (officially) people will look to find methods to save their money in crypto some other way. If you do it on P2P then officials will find where you are, pose as a trader, get to you and then they will prison you.

This is why it will be very very risky to continue, if you could do it online then they will do it online but they will not even risk the dangers of p2p so it is going to be very difficult. I hope that people there will be safe, because this is just another step of being a horrible nation.

The impression this move from China gave to me is, Bitcoin has only become MORE valuable in China, and that the people under that tyrannical State has come to need Bitcoin MORE than they did BEFORE the ban.

China is doing this because they hate decentralization and there is no two ways around it. Chinese people, specially people who are bankrolled by CCP will come out and say that china is number one and china is great and how other nations are bad.

However, we all know that there is really nothing that would be justified to defend china. We all joke about "if Jackiechan says anything bad about CCP then his whole family in china would be "disappeared" and would not be heard again" and even though it is not serious when we say it because we have no power, the fact that we could talk about it and know that it is a possibility is scary, just like "if you go against Putin in Russia, you would be found with 2 gunshot wounds to head and ruled as suicide" as well.

It is just way too scary to live in those nations, I may not love my nation 100% but I am so thankful to god that I do not live in those nations. China is just a horrible horrible place that doesn't even allow crypto because they are scared to give up a bit of their centralized rule.