Miners from China Account for 66% of Global BTC Hash Rate

Despite the fact that cryptocurrency mining is illegal in China to a certain degree, the country’s miners account for 66% of the global Bitcoin hash rate. Their power increased by 6% since summer and may be poised to further raise as new technological improvements are introduced in the mining hardware market.

According to research conducted by digital asset manager CoinShares, miners from China make up 66% of the global Bitcoin hash rate. The research was eventually reported by Reuters on Wednesday and brought attention to the highly growing mining industry in the eastern economic superpower. Taking a look at regions, the report found out that the Chinese province of Sichuan represents 50% of the global hash rate alone.

The term hash rate represents the total computing power inside Bitcoin’s blockchain system, which is used for validating transactions on the network. With greater power, the security of the blockchain network is significantly increased. The report also cites that the hash rate power in China swiftly increases, as it surged from 60% in June this year. The rate is also one of the highest in crypto history since CoinShares started recording them in 2017.

Besides Sichuan, the greatest mining province in China, other regions such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Yunnan also contribute to the country’s contribution to Bitcoin’s hash rate. Other significant mining hubs can be found in close regions such as Russia and Kazakhstan. The US. on the other hand is the greatest mining hub outside Eurasia.

According to Chris Bendiksen, the head of research at Coinshares, the hash rate surge in China may be contributed to more technologically advanced mining equipment. In the report, he stated: “This is beneficial to the Chinese mining industry […] If you are the first to increase your proportion of the hash rate, and you can do that before your competitors, that’s generally good.”

As for the big mining players, Bitmain seems to hold a monopoly in the Chinese mining market as it accounts for a 75% market share of cryptocurrency mining equipment worldwide. Besides Bitmain, Canaan Creative and MicroBT represent significant contributors to the Chinese mining market.