Chinese BTC Miners Turn To Other Countries Amid Government Ban

Chinese BTC miners turn to other countries amid the government crackdown while some decided to halt operations due to the increased pressure on the industry as we reported in our previous BTC news.

BTC.top is one of the few mining operators that stopped operations in China because of regulatory risks. Other mining operators like HashCow and Huobi Pool are taking measures as well like halting crypto trading services. The strong pressure on the crypto industry in China and a few crypto companies halting their operations within the country with some Chinese BTC miners turn to countries overseas.

Last 48 hours have been crazy.
So what will happen & what has already happened? Here are some initial thoughts:

1, This is first time such high ranking member of PRC declaring a “crack down on Bitcoin mining & trading”.

— Mustafa Yilham (@MustafaYilham) May 23, 2021

BTC.top is the tenth biggest BTC mining pool responsible for 1.7% of the global hash rate of the network in the past 24 hours announced that it would move its operations to North America. As per a Weibo post by Jiang Zhuoer who is the founder of the company, the exchange is suspending its China business due to regulatory risks. Zhuoer added that China’s role in the BTC mining industry will diminish in the future as more pools relocate to the US and Europe.

Huobi Global which operates as a crypto exchange and a mining pool, also announced that that “certain leveraged investment and mining pool products are unavailable to new users from a few specified countries and regions” saying that a lot of users will not be affected by this change. The statement included Huobi’s plans to expand the services beyond mainland China. Huobi Pool is the 15^th mining pool globally with 8.7% of the BTC network hash rate over the past 24hours. The company added that it aims to preserve the well-being of the users and their assets.

The exchange already ceased trading in China as the country is the only one where traders reported restrictions. In the meantime, HashCow is a BTC mining operator with ten mining sites in China and for now, it is continuing its activities so far. The company stopped purchases of the new mining rigs and started refunding customers for the cost of unshipped mining equipment.

The latest developments came after China’s State Council to “prevent and control financial risks” and according to some estimates, it accounts for about 65% of the network hash rate. Last week, three major payments associations in China reiterated their positions to support regulation introduced in 2017 which prohibits the country’s financial institutions from dealing with crypto.