NA and EU will lead global Bitcoin hashrate, predicts Chinese mining CEO
Bitcoin mining pools in China are starting to shutter operations in response to the local government’s tightening of crypto regulations, reports Reuters.
Crypto mining pool BTC.TOP has suspended in China and will shift its mining base to North America, founder Jiang Zhuoer reportedly wrote in a Weibo post.
China’s State Council committee for financial stability and development said last Friday the move was to curtail financial risk and fulfil the government’s zero-carbon pledge.
China’s government will “crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading behavior, and resolutely prevent the transfer of individual risks to the society,” said Vice Premier Liu He in statement.
Ars Technica noted Liu serves as president Xi Jinping’s top rep for finance and economics.
Bitcoin ‘strong’ even if hashrate halves
China has historically housed the world’s largest crypto mining operations and most of the Bitcoin hashrate.
Reuters noted crypto miners in the country provide up to 70% of the world’s supply.
In a tweet thread, Jiang predicted European and North American mining pools will rank higher than the Chinese pools. Eventually, China will “lose crypto computing power to foreign markets.”
“[…] Bitcoin mining will exist as normal, except the mining in China will be shifted from industrial-size datacenters to home miners, small or medium-sized miners,” wrote Jiang.
“The entire Bitcoin network will always be strong even if its hashrate declines by 50%.”
[Read more: China’s crypto king pleads guilty to laundering $480M for online casinos, report]
Huobi Mall — owned by crypto exchange Huobi — also reportedly halted its custody business alongside its mining operations.
BTC.TOP and Huobi’s mining pools are currently the 8th and 9th largest by Bitcoin hashrate.
Each represent a touch under 3% of the total computing power on the network over the past 24 hours.
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