Chinese province sets up hotline to report suspected crypto miners

Chinese province sets up hotline to report suspected crypto miners

A Chinese province has asked residents to blow the whistle on neighbours they suspect of being cryptocurrency miners, in a new sign of how authorities in the country are cracking down on the booming industry.

The Inner Mongolia Development and Reform Commission said that it would set up a telephone hotline through which people could report suspected mining outfits as part of an effort to “comprehensively clean up and shut down” these operations.

The development comes as concerns grow over a crackdown on bitcoin and other digital currencies in the world’s second-biggest economy. A warning from China’s central bank this week that they were “not real currencies” and that financial institutions should avoid using them was followed by a plunge of as much a 30 per cent in the price of bitcoin.

Bitcoin was trading down 1 per cent at $39,423 during European trading hours on Thursday, according to the Bitstamp exchange.

China’s regulatory approach to cryptocurrencies, whose prices have surged in recent months, has been more severe than other jurisdictions such as the US, which have remained comparatively open to institutional involvement.

Regulators “want to secure the money supply is always from the central bank, rather than from . . . cryptocurrencies”, said Ken Cheung, chief Asian FX