0
0
China’s resolve to prohibit Bitcoin miners from operating in the country appears to be waning. According to an update to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI), the country’s contribution to global Bitcoin mining computing power exceeded 20% in January of this year.
Following a new crackdown on Bitcoin mining in August, it had dropped to zero. According to the new research, activity has increased again, and China is now the second-largest Bitcoin miner after the United States.
The CBECI is a global tracker of Bitcoin mining computing power and energy consumption. The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) compiled this report, which details the total amount of electricity and power consumed by Bitcoin miners around the world.
After China began cracking down on Bitcoin mining in the country in 2021, the tracker revealed that its contribution to Bitcoin mining quickly dropped to zero. By August 2021, China had gone from providing over 80% of the world’s Bitcoin mining computing power to zero. However, the country’s contribution appears to be increasing again since then.
China provided 22.29 percent of computing power in September 2021, followed by 18.09 percent in October, and so on, according to the updated tracker. China accounted for more than half of the computing power used to mine Bitcoin in January of last year.
| Month | China’s contribution to Bitcoin mining |
| August 2021 | 0% |
| September 2021 | 22.29% |
| October 2021 | 18.09% |
| November 2021 | 18.12% |
| December 2021 | 19.14% |
| January 2022 | 21.11% |
To be sure, China’s share of Bitcoin mining has been declining since the late 2020s, when various Chinese authorities began cracking down. The country’s contribution had dropped to 34.3 percent in June of last year, but it plummeted after the People’s Bank of China and other key authorities issued anti-crypto rulings in April.
As a result, miners fled to other countries, including the United States. According to the CBECI, the United States, along with Kazakhstan and other countries, has become the largest Bitcoin miner.
While the United States remains at the top, it appears that no miners left China at the time.
