Bitcoin can drop 50% and China's miners will still make money

Singapore

BITCOIN mining is so profitable in China that the cryptocurrency could fall by half and miners would still make money, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

Even at the country's highest regulated electricity tariff, miners can profit from bitcoin as long as it's worth more than US$6,925, BNEF analysts including Sophie Lu wrote in a report on Wednesday. The digital currency trades around US$14,200.

Bitcoin's 1,400 per cent surge last year saw greater demand for electricity to run the computers used in the cryptocurrency's mining. About three-quarters of those machines ended up in China, the world's largest electricity user, which is now s…