Chinese bitcoin miners are interested to developing bitcoin mining in Canada

News24xx.com -  Bitmain Technologies China is targeting a bitcoin mining site in Quebec because cryptocurrency mining make the energy-rich Canadian province an attractive alternative.

China has grown to become one of the world's largest sources of cryptocurrency but there are signs that Beijing is stepping up control of players in this sector and may ask local governments to regulate their use of power.

Bitmain Technologies, operator of some of the nation's largest mining farms, is a company that wants to expand overseas.

Bitmain spokesman Nishant Sharma said in an e-mail on Friday, January 12, 2018 that the company was looking for a location in Quebec and was in talks with regional authorities in the province. It also plans to expand in Switzerland.

Bitcoin mining consumes enormous amounts of energy because it uses computers to solve complex mathematical puzzles to validate transactions in crypto, written to blockchains, or digital ledgers. The miners try to solve this problem are appreciated in bitcoins and transactions added to blockchain.

While Beijing has not issued an official decision on a bitcoin mine, two Chinese miners told as quoted from Reuters that local authorities have grown more unwilling to allow the expansion and begin closing some mines by the end of 2017, as China limits crypto-escalation.

Last September, Chinese authorities banned offering coin and ordered Beijing-based cryptocurrency exchanges to stop trading.

"We, and from what I understand many of our colleagues, have already made plans to go abroad," said Li Wei, chief executive of ZQMiner, a Wuhan-based company that sells bitcoin mining equipment and has mines in three provinces in China.

Globally, regulators are increasingly to voicing concerns about cryptococcus, which is not supported by the central bank, due to their instability and concerns about risks to investors. China, which has tight capital controls, is also concerned that Crypto can facilitate the flow of illegal funds and develop financial risks.

In Canada, Hydro Quebec describes a potential sales network of about 30 large cryptocurrency miners after a campaign by public utilities to pull the data center into the province triggered the interest of minercoin miners by 2017.

Stephane Paquet, vice president of Montreal International, which promotes foreign investment in the largest city in the province, has called Quebec a place for "green bitcoin."

According to Hydro Quebec, the province has an energy surplus equivalent to 100 Terawatt hours over 10 years. One hour terawatt power 60,000 homes in Quebec for a year.

Both Hydro Quebec and Montreal International will divulge the names of interested miners. Vincent said companies are eyeing operations of about 20 megawatts, the size of a data center, to a location of 300 megawatts, about the size of a small aluminum smelter.

He expects several large companies to start operating in Quebec this year and early 2019. Bitmain spokesman said Bitmain has been mining in Canada since 2016, but did not say where.

The challenge for miners is to find existing facilities in Quebec that already have buildings and other infrastructure to use the enormous energy supply needed for cryptocurrency mining. A new facility will take about a year to operate.

"We have available energy," said Eric Filion, vice president of customers for the Hydro Quebec distribution division. "This is a question of finding land and buildings quickly."

Hydro Quebec, which offers some of the lowest electricity rates in North America, charges industry rates of $ 0.0248 per kilowatt hour (Kwh) (2.48 US cents) for data centers and $ 0.0394 / kwh (3.94 cents AS) for consumer cryptocurrency. Customers must bear other start-up costs, Filion said.

Textile and pulp and paper factories are very attractive to cryptococcal mining companies.

Alain Bourdages, vice president at Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products Inc., said by phone that the company had been contacted by the cryptocurrency company about the possibility of sharing their existing production site, or which is no longer in use.

 

 

 

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