Ethereum: China shuts down over 10,000 mining rigs

The authorities of china have seized over 10,000 crypto mining rigs from a retail park in Inner Mongolia.

This is however the first bust carried out by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) since the government intensified its clampdown on crypto trading and mining some days back.

It was disclosed on Monday that the authorities received an anonymous tip-off on a crypto mining operation going on in a retail park warehouse in Inner Mongolia. Officials were swift to respond and were at the site, discovering 10,100 mining rigs that were eventually confiscated.

It was also stated that the power consumption of the raided farm was 1,104kW/h. Although officials are yet to disclose the digital currencies that were being mined in the facility, the power consumption and the number of rigs suggest they were Ethereum GPU miners.

While previous bans seemed to have targeted publicly listed mining firms, authorities are now shifting focus to smaller mining operations that have managed to slip under the radar.

Sparkpool, the second-largest Ethereum mining pool in the world, is suspending operations due to the ongoing Chinese crackdown on crypto.

The mining pool officially announced that it has suspended access to new users in mainland China on Monday in response to Chinese authorities initiating new measures to combat crypto adoption in the country.

Following the initial restrictions made last Friday, Sparkpool will continue shutting down services, and plans to suspend existing mining pool users both in China and abroad on Thursday.