China’s crypto miners eye Kazakhstan in exodus; e-HKD study on track | The Daily Forkast

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, June 28th, 2021. I’m Angie Lau, Editor-in-Chief of Forkast.News, covering all things blockchain.

Coming up, we take a look at China’s crypto mining exodus to Kazakhstan, Hong Kong reaffirms its commitment to a digital currency, and Forkast.News kicks off a new series exploring China’s big bet on blockchain. Let’s get you up to speed. From Asia to the world.

Kazakhstan has quickly become a favorite destination for crypto miners looking to exit China’s ecosystem. That’s as Beijing continues to come down heavily on mining within China’s industry, which was considered one of the biggest producers of Crypto.

Forkast.News has been following this exodus and has spoken with companies based in Kazakhstan, one of which has witnessed a surge in demand for their services

“Thus far mostly the demand was for hosting space. It’s after this news from China that they’re cracking down, the demand has risen not only for hosting space, which is now completely contracted out in our facility, but now has increased to actually an interest in building facilities. And this has come very quickly.”

Other companies in the country, though, are worried about different demands, ones that have to do with the country’s limited energy infrastructure.

“So Kazakhstan basically have only 18 million of population and power generation obviously has a limit. So, this electricity is already used by miners — spare electricity, I mean. Not all hashrate distributing from China, migrating from China will come to Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan can absorb only maybe a limited part of this.”

There is also eyeing the introduction of a tax that would require miners to pay one Kazakhstan tenge or US$0.002. That’s a fraction of a penny per kilowatt-hour for power they consume. This could come into effect next year.

Let’s take a look at how markets fared today, starting with Bitcoin. At end of the trading day in Hong Kong, up 5% to close just over US$35,000 by 4 p.m. local time at the end of the Asian trading day.

And in the top ten for cryptocurrencies, nearly all of them ended the day in green with Ethereum outperforming the rest after closing the day up more than 9%.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government is pressing ahead with a digital dollar. The city’s financial secretary, Paul Chan, letting the city’s CBDC ambitions known this weekend. Chan wrote on his official blog that,”In a year, we will strengthen our preparation on using CBDC on a wholesale and retail level, including research on e-Hong Kong dollar at the retail level.

Now, Chen made the post following a tour of local businesses where he showed off digital wallets that residents will soon have loaded with vouchers in efforts to help boost businesses that have been hurt during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Though the vouchers aren’t exactly using CBDC, they are an indication that the government is moving full steam ahead with their plans and wants everyone to get used to the idea of a digital wallet.

And finally, in a three-part series launching this week, Forkast.News with support from the Judith Nielsen Institute’s Asian Stories Project, we map out Asia’s blockchain adoption, how China’s ambitions influence regional innovations, and what the implications are for developed economies like the United States.

“And as Bitcoin disrupted money by allowing the exchange of funds without the need to involve banks, blockchain may fundamentally change how information is exchanged. While most people pay attention to crypto, businesses and governments are focusing on blockchain”

“Asia is definitely a kind of a major hub of investment and blockchain projects of all kinds. There’s a lot of people, a lot of money, and the people are in many places rapidly getting more money. And so, I think from an investment standpoint, it’s very significant and going to be even more significant.”

You can read part one of the series and see the full video report up now on Forkast.News.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more, visit Forkast.News. I’m Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until next time.