Bitcoin hash rate improves as Chinese miners are coming back online
After a massive crackdown in China led to the closing down of Chinese crypto businesses, many of which fall within the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem, crypto miners have suffered a huge setback in the form of falling hash rates. The disappearance of miners from the grid affected its cumulative computing power and hashing performance, triggering the all-time high of 180.666 million hashes per second (Mhash/s) to 84.79 Mhash/s in a time span of 21 days.
The hash rate drop has so far been attributed to the lessening Chinese crypto miners, but Blockchain Explorer data now suggests a steady increase in crypto mining activity within the network since June 3. In September 2019, China contributed globally to the Bitcoin hash rate by 75.53 per cent, which was its highest. The number has declined with China’s imposition of a ban on crypto mining leading Chinese miners to opt for regions that offer both lower electricity costs and regulatory clarity. Cointelegraph has mentioned that Russia, Canada and Kazakhstan, owing to relaxed jurisdictions in crypto trading and crypto exchange, can be potential homes for migrating Chinese crypto miners.
China’s brutal crackdown on cryptocurrencies has resulted in alienating its mining population, as evident from the report published by Cointelegraph in early July where, Wang Juana, a member of China’s OECD Blockchain Expert Policy Advisory Board, stated that they are witnessing the cryptocurrency ecosystem “enter a path to ‘de-Chinasation’ as a direct result of Chinese government’s strong steps against Bitcoin in the past few weeks.
The Chinese authorities are hindering investments within the country under the pretext of shielding its citizens from participating in high-risk investments. However, experts view Chinese monopoly over the crypto mining industry as a positive step towards a highly decentralized cryptocurrency market system.
