Advertisement
Bitcoin
TechPolicy

US now top bitcoin mining hub following months-long crackdown in China that has pushed out cryptocurrency operations

  • The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index shows China’s crackdown on bitcoin has successfully pushed mining activities to other countries
  • The US now makes up 35 per cent of the global bitcoin hash rate, followed by Kazakhstan and Russia with 18.1 and 11.2 per cent, respectively

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Representations of the Ripple, bitcoin, ether and Litecoin virtual currencies seen on a PC motherboard on February 14, 2018. China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency mining has effectively pushed out nearly all related operations, sending its portion of the bitcoin hash rate to zero as the US becomes the top market at 35 per cent. Photo: Reuters
Coco Feng

China is no longer the world’s top bitcoin mining market after a months-long campaign to push out cryptocurrency mining saw related activity fall below levels seen in the United States, Russia and Kazakhstan, the latest data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) show.

Advertisement

Until recently, China had been the world’s top mining market since CBECI started recording data in September 2019 on each country’s hash rate, a unit of measure for the bitcoin network’s processing power for verifying transactions and mining new cryptocurrency tokens. But mining operations had started concentrating in the country years before because of its cheap electricity, and it became home to some of the world’s top mining pools and exchanges.

China was still the world’s top location for bitcoin mining as recently as June, when it contributed to 34.3 per cent of the global hash rate, down from a peak of 65 per cent in April 2020. CBECI’s latest data for July and August shows China at 0 per cent.

Since China’s crackdown on bitcoin mining over the summer, operations have largely moved to the US, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Graphic: SCMP
Since China’s crackdown on bitcoin mining over the summer, operations have largely moved to the US, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Graphic: SCMP

The US is now the world’s largest miner in terms of hash rate, taking up 35.4 per cent in August, followed by Kazakhstan and Russia with 18.1 and 11.2 per cent, respectively, according to the CBECI.

Advertisement
In May, the Chinese State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee, chaired by Vice-Premier Liu He, vowed to crack down on bitcoin mining. In the months that followed, the country’s biggest cryptocurrency mining hubs – including Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, and Xinjiang – joined the campaign to shut down mining farms.
Following the crackdown, many miners sought to move to North America and Central Asia. Disassembling and moving the large server arrays proved to be a costly undertaking, but the CBECI data suggests many have successfully transitioned to new locations.
Advertisement