Quote from: DARKANGEL6415 on November 18, 2017, 08:33:48 PM

While i would normally say i agree with a assessment like yours in this instance i have to disagree. China has lots of bitcoin farms not because they have such ultra cheap labor. The reason is because China subsidies for the electricity heavily in their region. Therefore technically someone one could probably use antminer s3 and make good profits as of today. The same goes for people in Venezuela thats why Venezuelan government has bitcoin mining illegal. That does not stop people in Venezuela it just makes miners split up mining operations between a group of homes.

China has some of the largest Hydro power in the world, giant government built projects to generate power. There is also the age old problem of electricity declining in efficiency over great distances, so I think some of these farms are located close to hot spots of cheap power.

Also solar power has become the cheapest form of power available in the world, its down to 30 cents for a watt of power. Thats retail and as said the Chinese have access to industrial rates because they make these things!

Venezuela has some of the worlds largest oil reserves, but lacks proper sophisticated industry, they have a facist government I think its fair to say and a collapse in proper industrial activity. Bitcoin is a good market solution but is opposed by government who produce inflation via money printing. The biggest argument in favour of bitcoin is places like this. Fuel is smuggled across the border to sell at higher rates, I believe it sold at false prices within national borders.
Venezuela recently defaulted on its debt so its probably in its final stage of economic breakdown.

I read that China is backing alternate blockchains to bitcoin. I believe the government wants a larger share of the revenue though China already dominates bitcoin mining, apparently its still too open for them to openly allow its bypass to capital controls.