Xinhuanet: Mining machines consume a lot of electricity, and electricity should be used on the "cutting edge" of promoting economic development

According to the news from BlockBeats, Xinhua News Agency in Beijing on May 28, in recent years, virtual currencies have been booming, attracting many people. Bitcoin and other virtual currencies have no physical objects. They are composed of a series of complex codes generated by computers. They need to be obtained through computer calculations according to algorithms, commonly known as "mining". The "mining machines" used for mining are generally large in power and consume a lot of electricity. According to a study by the Center for Alternative Finance Research at the University of Cambridge, as of May 10, 2021, the annual power consumption of global Bitcoin mining is about 149.37 terawatt hours (1 terawatt hour is 1 billion kilowatt-hours), which has exceeded the power consumption of Malaysia, Ukraine, and Sweden, and is very close to Vietnam, which ranks 25th in power consumption. The huge electricity bill expenditure makes the "miners" like "migratory birds", moving the "mines" wherever the electricity bill is cheap. Therefore, most of my country's virtual currency "mines" are distributed in areas with sufficient power resources and cheap electricity bills, such as Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia with sufficient thermal power resources and Sichuan and Yunnan with sufficient hydropower resources. "In the past two days, many 'miners' around me have considered shutting down their 'mines' or moving them overseas." A person in the "cryptocurrency circle" told reporters that they are preparing to cross the ocean and move their "mines" to countries such as Russia, Finland, and Canada where local permission is granted and electricity is in surplus. Electricity should be used on the "cutting edge" of promoting economic development. Experts suggest that regions with abundant power resources can establish a multi-dimensional normalized monitoring system such as market access, monitoring of large electricity users of Internet companies, and monitoring of abnormal Internet traffic to strengthen source control. (Xinhuanet)