New data from Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) reveals that Bitcoin (BTC) miners in America account for 35.4% of the total global BTC mining hash rate distribution, flipping China, who once accounted for the lion share.
This flip comes after China’s consistent crackdown on cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency mining in 2021, which saw the hash rate plummet by nearly 50% in May 2021.
The data also reveals that Kazakhstan accounts for 18.1% and Russia accounts for 11.2% as the next major Bitcoin mining centres outside the United States. These three nations now account for 64.7% of the total mining hash rate distribution of the leading blockchain and this was only possible due to China’s crypto mining ban.
The CBECI data now shows a 0% hash rate from China. According to the historical findings, “Since the government crackdown on the mining industry in June 2021, no data has been available and the migrations have likely become a phenomenon of the past.” Despite the data showing 0% mining activity, many believe that covert mining operations are still ongoing regardless of the ban.
Apart from the China crackdown, North American crypto mining companies have been upscaling their capacity with significant additions to their hardware capacity. American miners like Argo Blockchain, Riot Blockchain, Marathon, and several orders have made large orders of mining rigs from major manufacturers like Bitmain and MicroBT.
Bottomline
The United States may still very well account for even more of the hash rate power as the country is going miner friendly in places like Texas and Ohio. These two states are expected to play host to mega Bitcoin mining centres that will increase the production capacities of U.S. crypto miners even further. Texas in particular has proven itself to be innovation-friendly as Elon Musk announced that he is moving Tesla’s headquarters to the state.
Bitcoin trades at $55,100, down 3.82% for the day, as of the time of this writing.