New Bitcoin mining map

When it comes to crypto, one country’s loss is almost always another country’s gain, and Bitcoin mining is no exception.

China’s mining crackdown forced its miners, previously responsible for an impressive 65% of Bitcoin hash rate, to relocate.

And so they did, mostly to the neighbouring Kazakhstan and the enthusiastic North America – the recently updated CBECI (Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index) shows this very clearly.

The biggest winner of all this is the US, which doubled its hashrate share from before the crackdown (May) to become world’s biggest producer of bitcoins.

Despite being rather crypto hostile, Russia also took a share of Chinese miners, increasing its hashrate from 7% to over 11%. This did not come unnoticed: some of its regions, like Irkutsk in Siberia, registered an explosion in electricity consumption, and the Energy Minister is now considering introducing special tariffs for crypto mining.

While China on a CBECI map is greyed now, there may be some activity still, hidden by VPN or proxy services. Such conclusion can be drawn by comparing Germany and Ireland hashrate, which doubled for no apparent reason since May.

With the global hashrate returning to the June levels, the Great Mining Migration seems to be over… but for how long ?