U.S. has Overtaken China to Become World’s Biggest Mining Hub

Bitcoin miners were operating in China without any worries up until the start of April this year. However, the government of China decided to start a clampdown on Bitcoin mining this year. The main reason for this exodus was to minimize the financial risk. Many government officials in China claim that the increasing Bitcoin mining farms were also taking up a huge part of the limited energy resources.

After China decided to put a halt to the increasing Bitcoin miners, most of these miners decided to look for better locations to keep their business operational. Several business personalities and politicians from the USA claimed that the recent crackdown in China is a great opportunity for western countries. New research conducted by Cambridge University reveals that the USA is now the world leader in hosting Bitcoin miners.

New Research Conducted by Department of Alternative Finance

Research conducted on the matter of Bitcoin mining by the Department of Alternative Finance at Cambridge University shares interesting statistics. The report claims that in August 2021, the Bitcoin hash rate generated in the USA accounted for 35.4% of the total contribution in the world. The research also claimed that ever since Beijing has started to outlaw the Bitcoin miners, China’s hash rate shares have dropped down to zero.

For the government of China, these statistics are rewarding. However, the researchers at Cambridge believe that it is highly likely that many mining farms are still operational in the Asian country. The researcher claim that there is a high possibility that these miners are masking their IP addresses with the help of a Virtual Private Network or VPN.

The main reason that a majority of Bitcoin miners decided to conduct their business in China is the availability of cheap electricity and the low cost of real estate. The government of China has decided to give a preference to their CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency over other variants of decentralized crypto tokens. Therefore, most of the Bitcoin miners are looking for a new trade zone.

The researchers at Cambridge University have quoted that in countries like Kazakhstan and Russia, the contribution of Bitcoin hash rates has increased considerably. These researchers claim that these changes are visible due to the use of VPN by underground Bitcoin miners in China. It is worth noting that the research team of Cambridge University has collected the data for their study from sources like Via BTC, Foundry, Poolin, and BTC.com.