Bitcoin miners pivot to South-East Asia after China crackdown

Bitcoin mining rigs are popping up all over South-East Asia in abandoned shopping malls, former steel factories and on the side of hydro-electric power projects, as miners try to find sites where they can access the ample electricity they need. — AFP

The 17-acre cement slab in the middle of a Borneo industrial area once belonged to a logging company. Long ago that business abandoned the site to the elements, leaving just rudimentary structures and a four-story-tall concrete birdhouse made to lure swiftlets whose nests, built with saliva, fetch high prices in China.

But in 2023, another industry moved in: Bitcoin miners. Sheltered by a vast, sheet-metal roof, over 1,000 machines now roar away, while hundreds more sit nearby in cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked.