Biden blocks China-backed crypto mining firm from Wyoming

The United States government has ordered a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining company to stop constructing a mine in Wyoming.

According to the May 13 order signed by President Joe Biden, MineOne Cloud Computing Investment and its partners will be required to divest the property located near the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

MineOne Cloud is majority-owned by China. The company acquired the land in June 2022 and was preparing to set up a crypto-mining operation.

“There is credible evidence that leads me to believe that MineOne Partners Limited, a British Virgin Islands company ultimately majority owned by Chinese nationals […] might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” the order stated.

The order also requires the firm to remove all installed equipment from the site. It also bans Chinese-linked entities from accessing the site, which is situated closehttps://crypto.news/uniswap-founder-urges-democrats-to-immediately-change-bidens-approach-to-crypto/ to the U.S. air base.

MineOne has 120 days to wind up operations and sell the property. The firm is also prohibited from transferring these assets to any third party.

The mining site was initially flagged in October 2023 by tech giant Microsoft, which operated a data center in the area.

Microsoft issued an alert to the Federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, raising concerns that the site could be a “full-spectrum intelligence collection operation.”  

“We suggest the possibility that the computing power of an industrial-level crypto-mining operation, along with the presence of an unidentified number of Chinese nationals in direct proximity to Microsoft’s Data Center and one of three strategic-missile bases in the U.S., provides significant threat vectors,” Microsoft stated in its report.

The report followed an investigation by the committee that identified national security risks.

Over the past years, the U.S. has seen multiple Chinese-owned crypto-mining farms migrating to the nation following a ban in China in 2021. Some regions in the U.S. offer cheap electricity rates, which is a major selling point for these entities.

According to a New York Times report, Chinese-owned mining farms were reported in at least 12 states, including Texas, Wyoming, Arkansas, and Ohio.

Last month, the Biden government initiated a crackdown on the cryptocurrency mining sector with a 30% tax on electricity use by the miners. The move was met with criticism, with Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, claiming it would “destroy” the sector.