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Despite China’s cryptocurrency ban, the country is still the second largest miner of BTC, according to the Cambridge Analytica Bitcoin Miners Energy Consumption Index.
According to Cointelegraph, citing a CBECI report, miners from the Celestial Empire now generate 21.1% of the first cryptocurrency’s total network hash rate. Meanwhile, last year, Chinese authorities banned both mining and circulation of digital currencies in the country.
Previously, it was China that was the leader in the mining market. In 2019, devices from the Middle Kingdom generated three-quarters of Bitcoin’s total hash rate. After the ban, it was reported that mining was almost completely stopped in China. However, it appears that many companies continue to mine the cryptocurrency illegally.
“Our data empirically corroborates claims by mining industry insiders that bitcoin mining continues in China. Although mining volumes are far from previous levels, the Celestial Empire is still generating about one-fifth of all Bitcoin hashrate,” said CBECI Project Manager Alexander Neumueller.
Note that Russia is starting to lose its position. If previously Russia held the third position in the ranking of countries by the amount of mining, now it dropped out of the top 3. Now miners from Russia generate about 4.7% of the total hashrate of the Bitcoin network. Meanwhile, the total hash rate of Russian miners dropped from 13.6 eps in August last year to 8.6 eps in January this year.
The U.S. remains in first place with 37.8% of total hashrate. China is in second place, with Kazakhstan in third place at 13.2%. However, Kazakhstan’s share of the total hashray is also declining, from 18% last August to 13.2% in January. In the U.S., Georgia, Texas and Kentucky are the largest contributors to the mining industry.
Earlier, a group of U.S. environmental activists demanded that departments and agencies take steps to oversee PoW-based cryptocurrency mining.
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