The mines of mongolia [Back Story]

On 4 July, Morgen E. Peck woke up in the middle of the night with a slight case of panic. For three months, she had been pressing officials at Bitmain, a Chinese bitcoin-mining hardware company, to allow her to tour a mining facility it runs in Inner Mongolia. And for two months she had received encouraging but noncommittal responses. Now, though, time was about to run out because the deadlines were looming for our October issue.