The key disagreement with China’s dominance of BTC hashrate
CryptoQuant founder Ki Yang Ju has sparked debate in the crypto community by claiming that China currently controls 55% of the Bitcoin (BTC) network hashrate – which misses a crucial point about the distribution of mining.
Bitcoin mining pools such as Antpool, F2pool, MARA Pool and Foundry have management teams or are headquartered in a specific country. However, the miners who contribute hashrate to the pool are geographically distributed. This means that China's mining pool includes miners from around the world – including the US.
According to a recent analysis by TheMinerMag, two US-based mining pools – MARA Pool and USA Foundry Pool mined 33.6% of all blocks in August 2024. A mining pool operating in a different country.
Market Share of Bitcoin Mining Pools. Source: TheMinerMag
Moreover, due to the limited transparency of Bitcoin mining, trying to find the exact geography of hashrate is difficult – adding a level of specificity to the global hashrate wars.
Related: China Still Controls 55% of Bitcoin Hashrate Despite Crypto Ban
Will the Chinese government signal a change in crypto policy?
China in 2010 It passed a blanket ban on cryptocurrency activities in 2021, but in July 2024, rumors began to circulate that mainland China would ban Bitcoin – and the crypto community was divided over the truth of the rumours.
In the year In January 2024, the Chinese government announced a new anti-money laundering framework to be implemented in 2025 and aimed at combating money laundering through digital assets.
Recently, China's Legislative Affairs Commission intends to establish a new financial technology control mechanism for money laundering to amend an earlier ruling from China's Supreme Court.
At the time, Legislative Affairs Commission spokesperson Wang Xiang explained that financial institutions are responsible for identifying new technologies, measuring the new risks they face, and evaluating new business models arising from emerging technologies.
The newly proposed anti-money laundering regulatory framework requires cooperation from China's central bank and other financial institutions to issue guidelines to prevent money laundering risks in areas such as cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
Magazine: How Chinese traders and miners are getting around China's crypto ban
