China has a Change of Heart, Gives Up on Banning Crypto Mining
- China's National Development and Reform Commission considered banning crypto mining within the country.
- The country never actually made a move against crypto miners, but it did ask for public opinion about it.
It is commonly known that China is not the most crypto-friendly country in the world. Crypto trading is still completely banned, and the country’s NDCR (National Development and Reform Commission) even considered banning mining earlier this year, in April.
Luckily, it never actually did anything of the sort, and judging from NDRC’s recent guidance, it may have dropped the idea to do so.
NDRC Guiding Catalogue explained
Copy link to sectionBack on April 8th, NDRC announced that it requires a public opinion on a list of industries that the Commission wishes to encourage, eliminate, or restrict. The list is called ‘Guiding Catalogue for the Adjustment of Industrial Structure.’
The NDRC has been issuing the list for the past 14 years, starting in 2005. Back when it was first issued, the list included over 20 different industries. Those included things like water conservancy, information industry, agriculture, iron and steel, power, and more.
The encouraged category contained over 539 articles, while the restricted category contained around 190. Meanwhile, the category for industries that should be eliminated had around 400 articles. Of course, over the years, the categories have changed somewhat, adding or removing industries from each of them.
Crypto mining appeared on the list
Copy link to sectionThen, the to-be-eliminated category suddenly added cryptocurrency mining, placing it in the same basket as other industries and activities that are deemed unsafe, unregulated, harmful to the environment, or that wasted valuable resources. With no target date or plan regarding potential methods of elimination accompanying the proposal, this meant that crypto mining should be eliminated immediately.
The public was allowed to submit their proposals and opinions until May 7th, 2019, and try to affect the list according to its beliefs.
Now, however, it appears that cryptocurrency mining is no longer present on the list of activities that need to be banned. The final version of the Catalogue will be updated and released on January 1st, 2020.
