US Replaces China As World's Epicenter For Bitcoin Mining: Report

The U.S. is now the largest Bitcoin BTC/USD miner in the world, according to a report from Bloomberg.

What Happened: Bloomberg found the U.S. accounted for 35.4% of the global hash rate at the end of August. Meanwhile, China’s share of hash power has effectively fallen to zero, as per data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBEI).

In May, China accounted for 70.9% of global hash power. Only a month later, this figure dropped to 41.1% of the network’s hash rate.

Conversely, America accounted for just 28.7% of the network hash power in May, but now leads the world based on the same measure.

Cryptocurrency miners based in China have been forced to shut shop, after an intensified regulatory crackdown on all crypto-related activities in the region.

Last month, the world’s second-largest Ethereum ETH/USD miner, Sparkpool, said it was suspending operations in order to comply with local regulations.

However, it's likely that some Chinese mining pools are still active despite the government’s efforts to curb their operations.

Cambridge researchers have observed that large increases in hash power from Germany and Ireland are likely to be from mining pools redirecting their IP addresses to these regions.

“To our knowledge, there is little evidence of large mining operations in Germany or Ireland that would justify these figures. Their share is likely significantly inflated due to redirected IP addresses via the use of VPN or proxy services,” stated the Cambridge researchers.

Meanwhile, U.S.-based mining companies such as Riot Blockchain Inc RIOT and Marathon Digital Holdings Inc MARA reported record revenues from Bitcoin production in September.

Price Action: On Wednesday morning, Riot shares are up 0.82% at $25.72 and Marathon Digital shares are up 2.77% at $41.99. Bitcoin was down by 0.29% at $56,299.95.

Photo: Ewan Kennedy on Unsplash