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A visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the cryp­tocur­ren­cy bitcoin.S3studio | Get­ty Images­GUANGZHOU, Chi­na — Chi­na’s Inner Mon­go­lia region plans to ban new cryp­tocur­ren­cy min­ing projects and shut down exist­ing activ­i­ty in a bid to cut down on energy-consumption.Bitcoin is based on a decen­tral­ized net­work, which means it’s not issued by a sin­gle enti­ty like a cen­tral bank. Trans­ac­tions, record­ed on a pub­lic ledger called the blockchain, need to be “ver­i­fied” by miners.These min­ers run pur­pose-built com­put­ers to solve com­plex math­e­mat­i­cal puz­zles that effec­tive­ly allow a bit­coin trans­ac­tion to hap­pen. The min­ers receive bit­coin as a reward and that is the …