Research shows that listed companies such as Huatie Technology are secretly involved in Bitcoin mining

On May 29, Chinese blockchain media outlet 8btc.com reporter Lylian Teng published a two-part research report on some publicly traded Chinese companies that are secretly mining Bitcoin.

According to a research report, some publicly traded Chinese companies are secretly mining Bitcoin by pretending to provide web hosting services. In addition, recent studies have shown that there is a growing trend of mysterious miners mining BCH and BTC networks as these companies have been secretly conducting mining operations in China.

Chinese listed companies have bitcoin mining operations

On May 29, Chinese blockchain media 8btc reporter Lylian Teng published a two-part research report on some publicly listed Chinese companies that secretly mine Bitcoin. The first report, published on April 19, discussed a construction company that suddenly began mining cryptocurrency.

Huatie Hengan is a subsidiary of listed company Huatie Technology (603300), and it attracted the attention of regulators when investors discovered that the business was mining. Babbitt claimed that under the guise of cloud computing operations, Huatie secretly mined Bitcoin during his tenure, losing more than $23 million. In addition, the analyst found that more listed companies were involved in the mining industry under the veil of secrecy.

Lylian Teng found that some listed Chinese companies either mine themselves or have smaller subsidiaries that mine for them.

In another example, Chinese company Zhongying Internet (002464), which operates as an internet gaming brand company in China and internationally, is also allegedly mining cryptocurrencies. Chinese media said Zhongying Internet contributed 17.7% of Ebang International’s sales in 2018.

Zhongying Internet (002464) also operates the online media company Mobcolor, a mobile digital advertising platform. In August 2018, the two companies, Mobcolor and 3G Venture, will "build a digital cloud computing mining center.

3G Venture will provide Mobcolor with 90MW of power capacity at $0.055/kWh. In addition, the report states that Mobcolor has leased 65,000 Ebang mining equipment.

Mobcolor promoted its support for crypto on its Twitter page with a captioned photo that read, “Go further with Bitcoin.”

Chinese companies mining in Iran

In addition to Zhongying Internet, another Chinese business called RHY is said to be building mining factories in Iran and other places. A miner named Ma Jingguo told local news media that RHY is also a listed company in China and belongs to the New Third Board company Internet Online (835727).

RHY has not hidden the fact that it is involved in blockchain mining and claims to power a 450MW facility with 300,000 miners. According to miner Ma Jingguo, a large number of RHY mining farms are located in Iran, and the company was the first to cite the hashtag #MininginIran on social media. In addition to the very affordable electricity prices that Chinese miners receive in Iran at $0.006 per kWh, many also flock to Sichuan in search of cheap electricity during the flood season.

The news also follows recent official discussions about banning Bitcoin mining in China. On April 9, a state planner at China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) revealed that he wants to eliminate mining activities in the country. Reports claim that the NDRC said Bitcoin mining should be phased out because they do not comply with relevant laws and regulations, are unsafe, waste resources and pollute the environment.”

The involvement of public companies in secretive mining operations comes at a time when mysterious miners are taking over a large portion of the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Core (BTC) networks.

Oinmetrics chart shows resurgence of anonymous miners

In the first month of 2019, blockchain observers noticed an increasing trend of unknown miners processing blocks on these networks since the early days. On January 28, the mysterious miner accounted for more than 22% of the hashrate on the BTC chain, and 17% of the hashrate on the BCH chain. Today, these numbers have declined, but unknown miners still account for 9.7% of the BTC network hashrate and 13.9% of the BCH hashrate. Mining focused on the SHA-256 algorithm has also seen significant growth in the past few months, and the hashrate on both networks, BCH and BTC, has increased significantly in value. When Huatie Hengan reportedly abandoned its construction work to quietly mine cryptocurrency, crypto prices were high, and Babbitt Research estimated that the startup lost more than 90% of its net worth in less than a year.

Compilation & reference address: https://news.bitcoin.com/study-publicly-listed-chinese-firms-quietly-participate-in-bitcoin-mining/