Chinese bitcoin miners eye sites in Quebec, Manitoba

China's Bitmain Technologies is eyeing bitcoin  mining sites in Quebec, a company spokesperson told Reuters, as  expectations of a potential Chinese crackdown on cryptocurrency mining  make the energy-rich province an attractive alternative. Bitmain  spokesperson Nishant Sharma said in an email on Friday that the company  was looking at sites in Quebec and is in talks with regional power  authorities in the province.. Bitcoin mining consumes large  quantities of energy because it uses computers to solve complex math  puzzles to validate transactions in the cryptocurrency, which are  written to the blockchain, or digital ledger. While Beijing has not  issued any official edict on the bitcoin mines, two Chinese miners told  Reuters that local authorities had grown more unwilling to allow  expansion and had started to shut down some mines in late 2017, as China  clamped down on cryptocurrencies.. Hydro Quebec described a  potential sales pipeline of around 30 large cryptocurrency miners after a  campaign by the public utility to attract data centres to the province  triggered a flurry of interest from bitcoin miners in 2017. The  challenge for miners is finding existing facilities in Quebec that  already have buildings and other infrastructure in place to use the  large energy supply required for cryptocurrency mining.. In  Manitoba, Manitoba Hydro has fielded more than 100 inquiries from  cryptocurrency miners in the past three months about specific sites, a  company spokesperson said. That is far larger than utility rate changes  proposed last year in other provinces, including 0.7 per cent in Quebec,  according to Manitoba Hydro data..