China's crackdown forces cryptocurrency miners to stop operations

After the crackdown last Friday, several companies have said they want to move their business overseas, particularly to North America.

Cryptocurrency mining operators, including Huobi Mall and BTC.TOP, are suspending their operations in China after Beijing stepped up its efforts to crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading, causing the digital currency to plummet.

A State Council committee headed by Vice Premier Liu He announced the efforts late Friday evening. However, this isn't the first time the board has targeted virtual currency mining, a huge business in China that accounts for up to 70% of the world's cryptocurrency supply.

Miners are using increasingly powerful and specially designed computer equipment to verify virtual currency transactions. 

Bitcoin has taken a hit since China's latest move and has now dropped nearly 50 percent from its all-time high. He lost up to 17% on Sunday.

Investor protection and the prevention of money laundering are real concerns of governments and financial regulators.

US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raised the pressure on cryptocurrencies last week, saying they pose a risk to financial stability and indicating more regulation.

A move abroad

Huobi Mall, which is part of the Huobi cryptocurrency exchange, said in a statement that all of its custody activities have been suspended.

"In the meantime, we are reaching out to foreign service providers to pave the way for mining platform exports in the future," said Huobi Mall and asked customers "not to worry and calm down."

BTC.TOP, a cryptocurrency mining pool, has also announced the suspension of its activities in China. Founder Jiang Zhuoer said in a post that in the future BTC.TOP will primarily conduct cryptocurrency mining in North America.

"In the long run, nearly all Chinese mining rigs will be sold overseas as Chinese regulators crack down on mining at home," he wrote.

China has already lost its central global cryptocurrency exchange position after Beijing banned cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017.

Risk-adjusted returns

Aside from the magnitude of last week's virtual currency crash - the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index fell nearly 40%, the highest since last year's March pandemic. Significant swings in intraday prices also caught the attention of investors.

However, RBC derivatives strategist Amy Wu Silverman said that, based on a measure of risk-adjusted returns known as the Sharpe ratio, Bitcoin outperformed Tesla Inc.Tesla shares - ticker TSLA), SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust or Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1.

Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin are still making major gains over longer periods of time, like last year - around 12.000 percent in Dogecoin's case.