Bitcoin "Mining Disaster": When Grassroots Dreams of Wealth Are Broken

Nakamoto 2025-9-29 18:01 29019人围观 BTC

*本文为「三联生活周刊」原创内容他们在矿圈中淘金，更多依靠的不是知识和理性，而是草根阶层对财富的极度渴望和直觉、本就一无所有反倒一往无前的勇气，以及对比特币的“信仰”。但2021年6月18日政府发布的比特币矿 ...

*This article is the original content of "Sanlian Life Weekly"

In their pursuit of gold in the mining industry, they rely less on knowledge and rationality than on the grassroots' extreme desire and intuition for wealth, the courage to move forward despite having nothing, and their "faith" in Bitcoin. However, the “clearance order” for Bitcoin mines issued by the government on June 18, 2021 broke this belief.

Text | Song Si
Editor｜Chen Xiao
Mine without power

Standing on a mountaintop in the Garze Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province, overlooking the mountain col not far away, you can see the Yalong River winding eastward, like the Ifinger River in Nordic mythology, completely dividing the two worlds: On this side of the river is an ancient Tibetan village, with brown and white watchtowers in the open space, and prayer flags surrounding the grain drying field rising and falling under the blue sky； On the other side of it, there are three silver steel structures about six stories high, standing slightly abruptly in the jungle. The two sides of the building are covered with a single roof made of silver and gray-black steel tiles, reflecting the restless light spots at noon in Western Sichuan. Movement and stillness, primitiveness and modernity, nature and industry, are absurdly and harmoniously intertwined and integrated here.

If you walk into these steel structures built in the post-industrial era, you can see hundreds of rows of iron frames in an orderly manner, with rectangular white iron boxes placed somewhat messily on the iron frames. Two cooling fans wrapped in black material are exposed from the iron box. Above and to the left and right of the fans, two or three thick white power cords are dragged outside the fuselage like hungry claws.

In 2016, in a computer room near a hydropower station in Aba Prefecture, Sichuan, 550 mining machines roared day and night. The picture shows the staff checking the operating status of the mining machine (photo provided by Visual China)

This is a small and medium-sized Bitcoin mine. The Antminer S19 mining machine in the mine is one of the models with higher computing power among mining machines. The power consumption is 3250 watts/hour, which is 3.25 kilowatt hours of electricity per hour. At the end of the day, a machine consumes nearly 80 kilowatt hours of electricity. This mine in Ganzi has a total of 5,000 Bitcoin mining machines with similar power, which consumes nearly 400,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a day. In addition, it also has 1,000 graphics card machines, hundreds of A10PROs for mining Ethereum, etc. When the mine is operating normally, the fan wall on the left side of each building will sound 24 hours a day and night, echoing throughout the valley together with the Yalong River not far away. The green power indicator lights on thousands of mining machines are connected together, one after another like water.

The mining profits supported by the huge power are also amazing. Each S19 in this mine can generate a daily income of approximately 149.62 yuan based on the Bitcoin market price in June 2021. Excluding the electricity cost of 29.64 yuan, the net income is approximately 119 yuan. The profits from other machines are also not low. Even the graphics card machine 3070, which has a relatively low computing power, earns about 100 yuan in one day. Roughly calculated, this mine can generate an income of 700,000 yuan per day - this is the profit income when the price of Bitcoin continues to fall.

However, these data representing wealth are a thing of the past, and the mines are now dead. Since June 2021, it has been shut down without power. When building this mine last year, shareholder Wang Sheng and his partners invested more than 10 million yuan, but they have not yet recovered their capital. He told our reporter: “Even if it is sold at a low price of 3 million yuan, no one will buy it. Because the most valuable part of the mine is the power resource. Now that there is no power, we can only sell the transformers and steel as scrap copper and iron, which can probably be sold for 100,000 yuan. ”

The reason why the mine was shut down was because of the mine clearance policies that the government has successively introduced since May this year.

On May 21, the Financial Stability and Development Committee of the State Council held its 51st meeting and clearly proposed “cracking down on Bitcoin mining and trading.” Following this, Yunnan, Xinjiang, and Qinghai successively introduced policies to comprehensively rectify virtual currency mining companies. At that time, Sichuan’s ban on Bitcoin mines had not yet been issued, and many mines had gradually transferred their mining machines to Sichuan. “We are all waiting for Sichuan's policies, and everyone's expectations were originally optimistic. ”Wang Sheng told this reporter.

Illustration｜Elizabeth

Sichuan Province is rich in hydropower resources. In April and May 2020, the governments of Ya'an, Ganzi and other places in Sichuan issued documents to develop hydropower consumption demonstration areas and develop the blockchain industry. With the construction and completion of consumption parks across Sichuan, mine owners firmly believe that the Sichuan provincial government supports the Bitcoin mining industry and is guiding it in the direction of compliance.

In fact, since the first Bitcoin mine was built in 2013, Sichuan Province accounted for nearly 50% of the world's computing power resources at its peak. According to estimates by the person in charge of the China Digital Mining Association, before the “clearance order” was issued, Sichuan Province had at least 8 million kilowatts of computing power. The mines that share these computing power are scattered in Ya'an, Ganzi, Tianquan, Heishui, Xiaojin, Daocheng, Lingnan, Leshan, Muli, Li County, Liangshan Prefecture and other places. The construction cost of a mine with a load of 10,000 kilowatts is 3 million to 4 million yuan. If Sichuan is regarded as a large mining area, its total construction cost will reach 35 billion yuan. The company headquarters of these mines are often located in Chengdu, which is why Chengdu is called the "computing power capital" by people in the Bitcoin circle.

But what everyone expected was that on June 18, 2021, the Sichuan Provincial Development and Reform Commission and the Provincial Energy Bureau jointly issued the "Notice on Cleaning up and Shutting Down Virtual Currency "Mining" Projects", requiring relevant power companies to screen and shut down all mining-related projects before June 20. Sichuan failed to become the last refuge of China’s Bitcoin mining farms.

““Free” Bitcoin

Qin Peng is one of the first people in China to come into contact with the Bitcoin industry. After hearing about Bitcoin for the first time in 2012, he asked experts to research this "financial product" and decided to raise money to build a mine the next year. Originally specializing in futures trading, he was keenly aware that although Bitcoin's peer-to-peer and decentralized concepts are in line with people's desire for freedom, from another perspective, the lack of absolute freedom from any organizational supervision will definitely lead to the most primitive greed in human nature. In addition, the underlying technology of Bitcoin is secure enough and can be used to match a market value of hundreds of millions or even trillions. Both of these points point to the controllability of Bitcoin. “It is precisely because Bitcoin is completely priced by the market like air. No one can clearly tell you how much this thing is worth. So how much big capital wants it to be worth, it can be worth. ”

His judgment was quickly confirmed. “From 2016 to 2017, there was a small group in China called the "Weibang". The share of Bitcoin held by this group accounted for a large part of the total amount of Bitcoin at that time. Therefore, Weibang in those two years can be said to be able to control the price of Bitcoin. Whenever they hear rumors that the government is going to suppress Bitcoin, this group will first cash out, and then use public opinion to build momentum. For example, they bribe the media to spread the news that "Bitcoin is a scam," causing market panic and causing retail investors to sell. When the price of the currency has almost fallen, they will take the opportunity to buy the bottom, use capital to raise the price of the currency, create another wave of momentum, and cash out at a high level. Today, such large capital still exists, but it is now in the hands of those on Wall Street. ”Qin Peng told this reporter.

In Qin Peng's view, Bitcoin has no actual value. This is not fundamentally different from those short-lived virtual air coins on the market. The only difference is that it appeared earliest, has strong symbolic meaning, and has the largest market consensus, so it has a very high degree of recognition around the world. Many private players firmly believe that Bitcoin will never return to zero and the game about it will continue forever.

Picture| Photo Network also entered the mining industry in 2013. Duan Chao, who has been engaged in the mining industry for 8 years, told this reporter that he believes that the country's crackdown on Bitcoin is mainly based on four considerations. The most direct reason is that China's "14th Five-Year Plan" includes carbon neutrality, energy conservation and emission reduction. In the previous mining distribution map of China, except for Sichuan, which has relatively sufficient hydropower during the flood season, and some areas of Qinghai, which has solar power, most other areas rely on traditional thermal power generation, which consumes huge amounts of electricity. Secondly, apart from taxation, Bitcoin-related industries have not brought actual value to the country in terms of technology and industrial structure. Instead, they have attracted more and more physical entrepreneurs to enter with capital, disrupting the real economy. In addition, Bitcoin poses a threat to the stable financial order. 2020 is the first year of the issuance of digital RMB. In April and May of the following year, the RMB exchange rate experienced a period of rapid appreciation. The national financial sector is very wary of market speculation regarding expectations of appreciation of the RMB exchange rate. The related financial channels involved in virtual currency bypass state supervision and pose great risks to the control of RMB exchange rate. In addition, the momentum of Bitcoin is so strong that countless small and medium-sized retail investors who do not understand the market are rushing to enter the market, which also threatens the stability of the financial market and the property security of the people. Duan Chao believes that from this perspective, this time the country’s crackdown on Bitcoin and related mining is a concentrated expression of the central government’s vigilant attitude towards Bitcoin-related industries. However, Bitcoin and surrounding mining businesses are like the unconquerable three-headed monster Cerberus by the River Styx, which has been growing tenaciously between personal desires and national policies. Every time a heavy policy blow plunges the industry into a downturn, many players buck the market and enter the market. These people have the same wildly growing power in their bodies as Bitcoin. They believe that in this mysterious industry related to the future, there are endless opportunities and high profits hidden, which are difficult to compare with any traditional industry. As long as you stay calm and dare to fight, courage will be rewarded.
People who join the mining industry

Yu Zimo entered the industry after Bitcoin plummeted on September 4, 2017. He is 33 years old. He has a fine haircut and smart clothes. His skin is darkened and roughened by years of wind and sun. When talking to strangers, he always dares not look directly into the other person's eyes. He always purses his lips. A pair of dimples appear from time to time, showing a hint of shy student spirit that is inconsistent with his age and status. Yu Zimo told our reporter that the first time he heard the word Bitcoin was on "Xinwen Lianbo" one day. After going online to learn more about it, he, who has done e-commerce business, keenly sensed the investment value: “At that time, I felt that behind it was advanced blockchain technology, which might represent some future information development trend. Since there is such technical support, Bitcoin should be popular. ”In fact, this may be all Yu Zimo knows about Bitcoin. He was born in a poor farm family in Lezhi County, Sichuan. He did not study much and had an older brother and an older sister. Because my family was poor when I was young, my sister was sent to another family early. The family relied on my father to work as a temporary worker at construction sites all year round, and my mother earned a meager income from starching and washing clothes. Yu Zimo has been aware of the pain caused by poverty since he was a child: "I often don't even have enough to eat. My clothes are always made smaller by my brother. When I see other friends wearing neat and beautiful clothes, I feel very envious and a little inferior." ”

Picture | Photo Network Because his family was poor, he was forced to drop out of school and work in his senior year of high school because of his excellent grades, outstanding basketball skills, and popularity in school. He still deeply regrets that he failed to take the college entrance examination. He felt that many of the misfortunes and regrets in his early life were directly related to financial problems. Later, Yu Zimo passed the adult college entrance examination and was admitted to a college majoring in computer science. After successfully graduating, he has been looking for an industry with low entry barriers and allowing people to quickly gain wealth to help himself and his family get rid of the shadow of poverty as soon as possible. After deciding to get into Bitcoin, Yu Zimo borrowed money from friends, added all his savings, and started speculating in Bitcoin. At that time, it was not long before the country took action to crack down on Bitcoin, and the value of the currency was extremely unstable. In less than a month, Yu Zimo's investment of hundreds of thousands was reduced to only 40,000 yuan. Although he suffered heavy losses, in the process of speculating in coins, he came into contact with the mining industry around the currency circle, and "only then did he realize that Bitcoin can still be mined." After learning more about it, he felt that miners' income was more stable. As long as the machine was running, they could make profits every day, so he decided to buy a machine for mining. At the beginning, he used a graphics card machine - he went to the Digital Plaza to buy a graphics card, assembled several graphics cards by himself, rented a house, and started mining coins. After digging for two months, the electricity bill alone cost more than 20,000 yuan. There was some profit in the beginning, but by the third month, the currency price fell, and the electricity input was higher than the output. He sold the coins he mined and borrowed money from friends. He scraped together 200,000 yuan and bought several professional Antmining machines for 30,000 yuan each. Based on the currency price at the time, Yu Zimo estimated that his payback period should be about three months. However, after buying the machine, the price of Bitcoin continued to fall, and the income still could not cover the cost of the machine and electricity. In March 2018, he had to sell all the mining machines at half price. After understanding the difficulties of starting a business in the mining industry, Yu Zimo decided not to bear the mining costs and losses himself, but to cooperate with other existing mines and act as a middleman. The so-called middlemen mainly help mining sites attract investment, find out which companies or individuals have mining machines and need to find locations for hosting, help both parties negotiate and sign contracts, and obtain commissions. This is a profession that looks very similar to the sales of physical enterprises, but because the income and profit scale of the mining farm are quite considerable, the commission amount that a successful Bitcoin mining farm middleman can obtain is far higher than the commission amount of physical sales.

In 2017, Yu Zimo, a Bitcoin mining farm located in Inner Mongolia (photo courtesy of Visual China), had extremely difficult times negotiating his first order. He is introverted and not good at dealing with people. At that time, he spent a whole week just negotiating the terms of the contract with the mining machine trustee and the mine. He had to modify the contract details until late at night every day, going back and forth over a dozen versions, and he was exhausted from the torture. On the day when the contract was finally signed, Yu Zimo's mentality was unexpectedly calm. The final payment time negotiated by both parties was 12 noon. When he received a text message from Bank of China at 11:45, he was still sitting in his friend's car parked in the underground garage of a shopping mall, scrolling through WeChat as if nothing had happened, and could only feel a string of fate trembling slightly. The text message reminded that Yu Zimo's account was credited with 1 million yuan, which was the deposit agreed upon by both parties. In other words, Party A agreed to host tens of thousands of its mining machines in the next year at the mine that Yu Zimo was recruiting as an agent - his first business deal was concluded. There was no ecstasy, no relief. Yu Zimo just suddenly remembered that he hadn't had a serious meal in a few days, and now he really wanted to eat a bowl of Chongqing noodles. After eating noodles on the first floor of the shopping mall, he went out and walked into the gentle breeze of April in Chengdu. He smelled the fragrance of flowers in the hands of an old woman selling magnolia flowers on the roadside. He suddenly thought of his mother, who was in poor health, and his father, who was in his seventies and still worked as a temporary worker at a construction site, moving rocks. He picked up the phone and dialed his mother's number, but cried the moment he heard his mother's voice. That noon, he faced the flow of cars and people on Tianfu Avenue, crying as he walked, not caring about the surprised looks of passers-by. After crying for several minutes, he finally spoke: "Mom, my son is rich, and he can finally support you. ”
believe in it

One order, 1 million yuan in revenue, this is just a very small wealth creation story in the Bitcoin industry. In the mining circle, there are more earth-shaking legends. Starting from the end of 2017, the price of Bitcoin first skyrocketed. In 2018, it was in a downturn for a whole year. It stopped falling and rebounded in 2019. It plummeted on "March 12" in 2020, and then reached a record high at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. The fate of countless people has fluctuated in this invisible currency ups and downs, but what people are more willing to see and praise are the myths of gaining wealth.
Sister Feng, who is in her 50s, was born in a remote rural area in Anhui Province. She only attended junior high school and got married at the age of 18. After getting married, she suffered a lot in order to comply with local traditions and give birth to a boy. After her children grew up, a certain consciousness in her heart gradually awakened, and she felt that she did not want to be buried in family trivial matters for the rest of her life, so she came to Zhongguancun, Beijing, in 1997, starting from doing computer business and opening an Internet cafe. In February 2017, she entered the mining circle and sold second-hand mining machines. In the past four years, the price of Bitcoin has gone through several rounds of ups and downs, and the price of mining machines has also fluctuated. However, Sister Feng has not retreated but made progress. During the most difficult time, she even mortgaged her house and purchased 40,000 machines of a certain model from Avalon. When Bitcoin rose again, these 40,000 machines earned her a net profit of more than 40 million yuan.

On July 22, 2021, Feng Dan, a Bitcoin advertisement on the streets of Hong Kong, is in his 40s, has a junior high school education, and is in the mining machine business. When the industry was in a downturn in March last year, she contracted all the A10 machines newly produced by the mining machine production giant Ant Group that month, and sold them one by one as the price of this model of mining machine increased, earning 3 billion yuan in one year. Xu Qiang dropped out of high school, worked as a toilet cleaner, and posted small advertisements. He also made his first pot of gold by reselling mining machines, realizing his long-standing ideal of "class leapfrogging." Now less than 30 years old, he has become one of the shareholders of a large company whose mining power accounts for 1.5% of the world's total computing power. During the interview, our reporter met several protagonists of the myth of Bitcoin’s wealth creation. Like Yu Zimo, they were born in poverty and had no higher education. Gold mining in the mining industry relies less on knowledge and rationality than on the grassroots' extreme desire and intuition for wealth, the courage to move forward despite having nothing, and the "faith" in Bitcoin. After all, it is not easy for most people to believe in Bitcoin and bet all their wealth on it. Its ups and downs are too frequent and fierce, and it is difficult to make decisions based on some kind of ready-made financial knowledge or traditional wisdom in life. Xu Qiang told this reporter that the mining machine reselling industry can be said to be one of the few businesses in China that has huge profits and low entry barriers. Unlike practitioners in industries such as real estate, medical care, and film and television, which originally require huge amounts of capital, those in the mining machine business mainly make money by taking advantage of the non-public and transparent nature of information in the industry and relying on information gaps: by accumulating a strong network of contacts, they know at the first opportunity where a certain type of mining machine is sold at the cheapest price. ； After the price of the machines rises, we can promptly connect with buyers who can buy these machines. Mastering these human resources, reselling mining machines can be a profitable business. You can stock up at low prices and sell at high prices without requiring too much capital investment. Therefore, many grassroots people who are not rich but have brains and emotional intelligence will choose to start by reselling mining machines, gradually accumulate resources and capital in the industry, and finally set up their own mining companies, open mines, and become "Bitcoin tycoons."

In digital currency mining, computers are also called “miners” (photo by Wang Haiyan). However, in the mining industry, what is more difficult than gaining wealth is keeping it. This industry attaches great importance to the exclusivity of connections. Therefore, mining machine dealers must constantly meet new "resources" in the mining circle, and their lives are often filled with social entertainment. In Xu Qiang's world, business negotiations, dinners and parties in the mining industry account for the majority. He hangs out in KTV and nightclubs almost every night. This is not only a way to comfort his life full of insecurities, but also a helpless move for him to preserve his resources and wealth. But no matter how difficult and thrilling it is, in Sister Feng’s view, as long as you maintain a good attitude and stabilize your position in this ever-changing industry, the countless dips or surges in the value of Bitcoin in the past few years will be countless opportunities to change from 4 million to 40 million. This is a kind of belief - I believe that Bitcoin must have a higher and higher consensus value around the world ； I believe that in this industry with huge profits hidden, there will always be capital flowing in. ； I believe this industry will not die and its prices will definitely rise back. “If you believe this, just throw the purchased machines in the warehouse, relax your mind, and wait for the currency price to rise again and the supply and demand relationship to change. ”Sister Feng told our reporter, “The key is to stay calm, wait, and believe in whatever you do. ”
Hold on or leave

But such a firm belief only existed before June 18, 2021.
“After the "Retirement Order" was issued, even though she was as calm as Sister Feng, she still felt unprecedented anxiety in the face of the current mining winter. Not long ago, the 900 machines she purchased for 65,000 yuan/unit have now fallen to 30,000 yuan/unit. A boss from Wenzhou made a special trip to Sichuan to purchase steel and transformers from a mine that had just been demolished at scrap prices, intending to sell them to other engineering projects. Sister Feng said that her company's losses in the past half month were no less than 600 million. “In the past, we jokingly called mining machines chickens that can lay eggs. When the market is bad, even if the chickens cannot be sold, they can at least be kept to lay eggs. But now, not only have the prices of chickens dropped to the point where they are worthless, but the electricity has been cut off, making it impossible to lay eggs. It’s really unreal when you see tens of thousands of your mining machines turned into scrap metal all of a sudden. ”Going offshore has become the only option for most domestic mining companies to survive. There are currently several main destinations for overseas travel: Central Asia, which is close and has abundant coal and electricity, Russia, which is vast and sparsely populated, and North America, which has relatively sound laws and regulations. No matter where you go, however, rushing out to sea carries great risks. “Wherever you go, there is a greater than 80% chance of falling into a trap. ”A person in charge of the China Digital Mining Association told this reporter that mining machines face many risks and challenges when going overseas: The first is the problem of insufficient capacity. Even in China, there is no more electricity to provide, and the size of overseas mines that can be accommodated is even more limited. ； Secondly, there is the cost issue. Overseas electricity prices are relatively high. In North America, the construction cost of 300,000 to 350,000 US dollars/MW, the distribution profit ranging from 5% to 25%, and the electricity price of 0.5 to 0.6 yuan/kWh make most small and medium-sized mining companies prohibitive. Even in Central Asia and Russia, where electricity prices are relatively cheaper, the electricity rate reaches 0.38 yuan/kWh, which is much higher than the 0.2 yuan/kWh in Sichuan. The subsequent operation and maintenance of the mine and a large number of mining machines also require higher costs than domestic costs. More importantly, overseas political and social factors are complex. In many places, the safety of mining equipment assets is often not guaranteed. Many pioneers who went overseas to Central Asia and Southeast Asia have suffered losses.

A Bitcoin trading store located in Istanbul, Turkey
Yu Zimo told this reporter that a friend sent mining machines to Myanmar for mining, and the local armed forces directly sent several trucks of people and robbed everything. Someone also went to Russia to build a mine. Unexpectedly, after the construction was completed, the local police came over with a piece of paper and drove it away. Later I learned that this was actually a scene staged by the police and local partners. There are also people who go to Kazakhstan to host mining machines. The electricity bill contract that was originally signed before the mining machines were delivered was torn up by the second landlord after the mining machines were delivered. The other party raised the price and refused to provide electricity if they did not agree. Even if these factors can be avoided, the implementation of the mine still involves complex matters such as connecting resources, signing a power purchase agreement (PPA), building high-voltage equipment, and constructing the mine, which is extremely time-consuming. “"Bitmain" is one of the very large Bitcoin companies in China. It mainly engages in research and development of Bitcoin mining machine chips, as well as mining machine business and mining. Although it is rich in capital and resources, its North American mine can only achieve a construction period of 8 months at the earliest, which means that its large number of mining machines will need to be idle for at least 8 months. Of course, not everyone sees these difficulties as insurmountable obstacles. Many people, especially those in the industry who have grown their companies, see this "mining disaster" as a new wave of opportunities. Liang Bin, a person in charge of the China Digital Mining Association, told this reporter that from a good perspective, the domestic government’s “clearance order” can actually push China’s mining industry out of its comfort zone and towards larger overseas markets. Therefore, he prefers to regard 2021 as the rising point of mining globalization. But mine owners like Yu Zimo, who have small mines and have not planned overseas resources in advance, have completely "fallen from heaven to hell" after the "clearance order" was issued. In March 2020, Yu Zimo also built his own mine. It was not so much the expansion of his career as his rebellion against the monotonous life after becoming rich. After earning his first pot of gold as a middleman in a mine, Yu Zimo also lived a life of partying night after night. During the day, he often stayed indoors and played games, "buying skins" for every hero in "Honor of Kings", and spending tens of thousands of yuan to win a virtual Maserati in the "Chicken" game. Of course, in the real world, he also bought himself a Maserati. But none of these things made him happier. At dusk, he often recalled the sweetness of those poor days when he was a child. At that time, he was wearing ill-fitting old clothes worn by his elder brother, and followed the older children to climb over the wall and enter the neighbor's orchard to steal oranges. Once the other party came to chase them away with a stick, they dispersed and waded across the small river at the entrance of the village to the other side, leaving the adults with nothing to do. During the Chinese New Year, they would knock on the neighbors' doors from door to door and say, "Dragon is coming, dragon is coming, good luck and good fortune." The adults at the door would give them one or two yuan, which was only a few cents in the hands of each child. But at that time, he could look at the oranges or coins in his hand and laugh from the bottom of his heart. He couldn't understand: Now that he was obviously rich and could finally support his parents, why did he become less energetic the longer he lived?

Picture | Photo Network “I feel that I can’t find the meaning of life. Maybe I should make more money, otherwise I will really lose the goal and motivation of life. ”When he decided to build a mine in 2020, because most of the money he earned before was squandered, Yu Zimo borrowed a lot of money. Funding problems led to repeated delays in the construction of the mine, and it was not completed until July last year. But it was already the end of the flood season, and it was difficult to attract investment, so the mine had to remain idle. Yu Zimo originally planned to attract investment again in April and May, the wet season this year, and at the same time use the 200 mining machines he owns to mine to accelerate return on investment. However, when the new flood season arrived, what he was waiting for was not new business opportunities, but a power outage "clearance order" from the provincial government. The mine that was painstakingly constructed became scrap metal. “No one is willing to buy such a mine that has lost power, even if it is sold at cost price.” What was even more troublesome was that he owed a huge amount of money when building the mine, and had to sell his beloved Maserati for this reason. However, the 600,000 yuan in cash received was far from enough to repay the debt of more than 2 million yuan. At this time, Yu Zimo was reading the famous work "Siddhartha" by German writer Hesse, which was recommended to him by a friend he met last summer who was studying religious anthropology in the UK. In the book, Siddhartha was once dragged into the bustling and noisy worldly life, but in the process he gradually felt isolated from meaningful real life. After experiencing painful self-awareness, he chose to listen carefully to the sound of water. In the process of perceiving the sound of water, he rediscovered his connection with himself and the world. This story alleviated the pain of Yu Zimo’s reality. He said that he saw himself in it - “In 2019, I thought Bitcoin made me successful because it made me seem to have everything at once. But now when I changed from a rich man back to having nothing, I discovered that this process from zero to zero is actually what made me successful. ； It made me realize my own limitations and increased my tolerance. Now I just want to read more books, practice calligraphy, and spend more time with my parents ； After all my debts are paid off, I want to study anthropology abroad, improve myself, and integrate into the larger world. After I come back, even if the policy is relaxed, I don’t want to continue working in this industry. I want to do something that is not just about making money for myself, but something that can truly create value for society as a whole. ”When he said this, Yu Zimo was driving on the winding mountain roads in western Sichuan, leaving the Ganzi mine that he was once proud of. At the same time, his life is also rapidly moving away from the mining circle where he has worked hard for many years and brought him countless glory and loneliness. In the past four years, he has experienced the hustle and pride of the spotlight in the Bitcoin circle, and also experienced the loneliness and hesitation after the lights went out. ； I have been nostalgic for life and debauchery, and I have also experienced polishing and settling. ； I made friends and was deceived. All this is like the contradiction of Bitcoin itself: the front is a utopian symbol used by idealists to shape a free future, but the back is a casino chip used by capitalists to use human greed to suck blood. No matter what business opportunities and myths this circle will create overseas in the future, for Zimo, his four-year dream of a mining circle with ups and downs is over. (At the request of the interviewees, Wang Sheng, Qin Peng, Duan Chao, Yu Zimo, Feng Jie, Feng Dan, Xu Qiang and Liang Bin are all pseudonyms in the article. This article was published in the 33rd issue of "Sanlian Life Weekly" in 2021. Click on the cover image at the end of the article to place an order with one click.）

END Author of this article: Song Si WeChat typesetting: Ran Ning
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