Back in 2019, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse made the infamous prediction that Bitcoin (BTC) wouldn’t win worldwide adoption because “Bitcoin is really controlled by China.” Flash forward to 2021, where Bitcoin now is hitting all-time highs and gaining legal tender status, and China has enacted a comprehensive crackdown on cryptocurrency, allowing the US to overtake it as the world’s largest BTC mining hub. Now there’s not only been a mass exodus of crypto related operations from China to the USA, including livestreaming dogecoin (DOGE) mining platform Hello Pal International Inc. (CSE:HP (NYSE:HPQ)) (OTCQB:HLLPF), BTC miners SOS Limited (NYSE:SOS), crypto mining machine manufacturers Canaan Inc. (NASDAQ:CAN) and Ebang International Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:EBON), all while retail giant Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) officially banned all crypto related purchases on its e-store.
While its headquarters were already in Vancouver, Canada, Hello Pal International Inc. (CSE:HP) (OTC:HLLPF) recently stated it’s relocating its crypto mining rigs to North America, after proactively securing new locations for their new Bitmain Antminer L7 Machines to be housed.
"We expect that the relocation of our mining operations to North America will set us up for long term stability in our crypto-mining operations," said KL Wong, Founder and Chairman of Hello Pal.
"In turn, this will provide us a solid base to execute our plans of integrating crypto into our social networking core business." Through its partner Shanghai Yitang Data, Hello Pal carried out a thorough review of optimal global mining locations and decided to move most of their rigs in New York State.
All locations are clean renewable energy (hydro-powered). As well all new mining rigs will be shipped directly to these North American facilities upon taking delivery from Bitmain, which is expected to be in November and/or December this year.
Hello Pal is also continuing to sell its existing Antminer L3+ mining rigs in China and using the proceeds to purchase brand new Antminer L7 models, which will be housed in North America.
The announcement came within a week of Hello Pal announcing record quarterly revenues, the majority of which came from cryptocurrency mining.
"We are very pleased to see the progress we have made as a Company, and believe that the results are evident in the financial figures," said Wong.
"We are particularly excited in the continued internationalization of our business, as reflected in our expansion of livestreaming services outside China and the integration of cryptocurrency into our platform through our newly launched crypto-mining operations." Similarly, SOS Limited (NYSE:SOS) recently reported progress of its North American Super-Computing and Hosting Center, located in Wisconsin—a state rich natural resources and renewable energy. At present, 6 units of mobile smart data center have arrived in Wisconsin.
"The supercomputing and hosting center in Wisconsin is an important part of SOS's efforts to create its own blockchain technology based ecosystem," said Yandai Wang, CEO and Chairman of SOS.
"We look forward to launching our Super-Computing and Hosting service business in Wisconsin in the first quarter of 2022." The total power at the Wisconsin center is expected to be 50MW, fueled by renewable power and grid power. The Wisconsin facility is projected to have a total BTC hash power of 1,000 PH once in full capacity of operation. Phase I of the center is projected to use up to 20MW 17 units of mobile smart data center are equipped for this purpose.
Despite the Chinese ban, mining machine maker Canaan Inc. (NASDAQ:CAN) has been securing orders for thousands of machines at a time, including the recent sale of 6,500 Bitcoin mining machines to Hive Blockchain. This latest order by HIVE follows upon two recent purchases of 4,000 units and 6,400 units of Canaan’s Avalon Miners in August and January of 2021, respectively.
"The additional purchase order from HIVE further strengthens our working relationship," said Nangeng Zhang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canaan.
"The consecutive deals are not only a testament to the quality and performance of our mining machines, but also demonstrate our effective client relationship-building efforts. We will continue to position ourselves as an important partner for HIVE as they accelerate their business growth." Back in May, Ebang International Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:EBON) made an official statement titled Crackdown on Bitcoin mining has no direct or immediate impact on the company.
In it, Ebang stressed the crackdown had no direct or immediate impact on the company by highlighting for its shareholders the distinctions between its business and the impact of the China government’s policy.
"When we first announced our mining business, we only considered overseas mining farms, therefore the recent crackdown on bitcoin mining within China has no direct or immediate impact on the company," said Ebang in the statement.
"The company has banned Chinese citizens from participating in trading and banned users or potential users from Chinese IP addresses from accessing our exchange platform since we positioned our cryptocurrency trading mechanism. Accordingly, the Chinese government's crackdown on trading has no impact on the company and its prospects." It’s worth noting that Ebang hasn’t put out a single press release on its English language website since that May statement.
Multi-billion-dollar retail giant Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) took the ban very seriously, banning all overseas sales of cryptocurrency mining back in September.
Alibaba.com explicitly prohibited the sale of “virtual currency-mining machines” – including hardware and software used for obtaining cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin – as well as mining tutorials. It then removed two product categories – “blockchain miners” and “blockchain miner accessories” – from the site.
However, more recently Alibaba rebranded its non-fungible token (NFT) offerings as “digital collectibles”, in an effort to steer away from any potential conflict with Beijing—especially after Chinese state-run media recently warned of a potentially ‘huge bubble’ in the NFT market.
On Alibaba’s digital flea market Xianyu, a search for “NFT” does not show any results. Meanwhile a search for “digital collectibles”, turned up about a dozen items for sale.
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