Following a sudden uptick in covert mining operations after the June 2021 government-mandated ban on Bitcoin mining, China has re-emerged as a major mining hub (21.11%).

It is worth noting the distinction between absolute hashrate levels and relative country shares when analysing country-specific developments: a shrinking country share does not necessarily imply a decline in domestic mining activities but may rather indicate stagnation or slower growth relative to the rest of the world.

Now, exclusive data obtained in collaboration with partnering mining pools BTC.com, Poolin, ViaBTC (1), and Foundry provides new insights into the whereabouts of this new hashrate capacity.

New data confirms that the United States has not only retained its leading position as the largest mining hub globally, but also surpassed the rest of the world in terms of hashrate growth. This is evidenced by installed capacity surging from 42.74 EH/s (35.40%) in August 2021 to 70.97 EH/s (37.84%) in January 2022.

Most notably, however, is China’s apparent comeback. Following the government ban in June 2021, reported hashrate for the entire country effectively plummeted to zero during the months of July and August. [...] This strongly suggests that significant underground mining activity has formed in the country, which empirically confirms what industry insiders have long been assuming. Access to off-grid electricity and geographically scattered, small-scale operations are among the major means used by underground miners to hide their operations from authorities and circumvent the ban.

A more likely explanation lies within our top-down research methodology which is based on aggregated geolocational data reported by partnering mining pools. This approach is theoretically vulnerable to deliberate obfuscation by individual miners who may, for various reasons, choose to conceal their location by using virtual private networks (VPN) or other proxy services.

It is probable that a non-trivial share of Chinese miners quickly adapted to the new circumstances and continued operating covertly while hiding their tracks using foreign proxy services to deflect attention and scrutiny. As the ban has set in and time has passed, it appears that underground miners have grown more confident and seem content with the protection offered by local proxy services. As the ban has set in and time has passed, it appears that underground miners have grown more confident and seem content with the protection offered by local proxy services.

The geographical mining landscape has again shifted substantially, with the US now cementing its dominant position by a wide margin while other countries are only moderately growing their capacity. These geographic shifts in mining activities bring to the fore how relocations impact the overall sustainability of the network.

We have adjusted the methodology for our best-guess power demand estimate by adding specific constraints to the mining equipment list to make the hardware sample more representative of miners’ current equipment portfolio.