China’s Yingjiang County to “forcibly” cut off Bitcoin miners from hydropower stations

Regulators in the Yingjiang County of China’s Yunnan province have asked hydropower plants to stop supplying power to Bitcoin mining establishments.

According to a recent notice, the Office of the People’s Government of Yingjiang County gave power plants until Tuesday, August 24, to remove mining companies from their supply grid. Should these plants fail to delist mining facilities from their grid’s “illegal” supply, the county official will “forcibly dismantle” the supply to Bitcoin mining facilities within its jurisdiction.

Furthermore, hydropower plants are required to report to China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) after delisting mining facilities from the grid. The county intends to use this information to beef up enforcement efforts to see that illegal power supply to Bitcoin miners is stopped completely.

According to the notice, the Yunnan Provincial Energy Bureau claimed that Bitcoin mining activities heavily relied on “unauthorized private access to electricity, evasion of state transmission and distribution fees, funds and additional profit-making violations.”

Amid China’s intensified efforts to clamp down on Bitcoin mining, the country’s share of the global Bitcoin hash rate has dropped to 46.04%, with miners relocating to more crypto-friendly jurisdictions, including the United States and Russia.