China supposedly killed off crypto mining back in 2021 when they banned it completely. Then in September that year, they went even further and outlawed all cryptocurrency transactions. The government’s reasoning was that crypto enabled criminal activity and messed with the country’s financial stability. Everyone thought Chinese miners were done.
Guess what? They never actually stopped. Fresh data from Luxor shows China’s now responsible for 14.05% of all Bitcoin’s computing power, around 145 exahashes per second. That puts them as the world’s third-biggest Bitcoin mining operation, sitting behind just America and Russia.
The data doesn’t tell us exactly where these miners are operating from, but people in the industry are pretty sure most of it’s happening in Xinjiang. Sources who deal with mining equipment say operations quietly started back up there. It makes total sense though; Xinjiang’s in the middle of nowhere with dirt cheap electricity, which is exactly what you need for massive mining setups.
Bitcoin’s doing alright too, sitting around $111,807 with a small bump up over the day. The worldwide Bitcoin hashrate is at 1,137 EH/s, meaning lots of miners are active and the network’s secure. When hashrate goes up like this, it usually means miners think Bitcoin’s going to stay profitable long-term.
So China tried really hard to wipe out crypto mining, but their miners just went underground instead of actually leaving.
Conclusion
China secretly operates 14.05% of Bitcoin’s mining power despite the 2021 ban, ranking third globally, with underground operations primarily running in Xinjiang’s remote regions.
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