Bitcoin’s estimated hashrate plunged roughly 10% in a single day after a reported shutdown of mining rigs in China’s Xinjiang region, underscoring how geopolitics and local power dynamics can rapidly reshape the mining landscape. What happened - Former Canaan co‑chairman Jianping Kong said in an X post Monday that Bitcoin’s hashrate fell by about 100 terahashes per second (TH/s) since Sunday. He attributed the decline to “at least 400,000 machines” powering down, using an assumed 250 TH/s per ASIC to reach that figure. - Kong linked the outage to mining farms shutting down in Xinjiang. Cointelegraph could not independently verify the shutdowns, but Kong’s background at a Chinese ASIC maker gives his claims weight. The numbers - YCharts data cited by Kong shows hashrate slipping from about 1,053 TH/s on Sunday to just under 943 TH/s on Monday — a drop of roughly 110 TH/s, or more than 10%. Note: total network hashrate is an estimate inferred from blockchain statistics and not a directly measurable quantity. Why China matters — and why it’s unstable - China historically dominated Bitcoin mining, accounting for roughly 65% of global hashrate before Beijing’s 2021 crackdown forced a mass miner exodus. - Mining activity has returned to parts of China in 2024. October data from Hashrate Index estimated China’s share at about 14% of the global total; CryptoQuant places it between 15% and 20%. - Reuters recently reported that despite the national ban, some individual and corporate miners continue to exploit cheap electricity across the country — a factor that can produce sudden, hard‑to‑predict swings in global hashrate. Geopolitical and industry implications - Kong framed the Xinjiang shutdowns as a strategic win for the U.S., saying “the US wins without lifting a finger,” reflecting the broader narrative that mining is shifting westward. - U.S. domestic mining capacity is expanding rapidly. At the end of August, Hut 8 said it would build four new mining sites in Texas, Louisiana and Illinois, adding 1.5 gigawatts of capacity. Hut 8 is the parent company of American Bitcoin, a publicly traded firm linked to the Trump family; Eric Trump sits on its board. - At the same time, U.S. authorities are scrutinizing China‑based mining and ASIC supply chains. Reports in late 2024 indicated an investigation into Bitmain over national‑security concerns — namely whether its hardware could be remotely controlled to spy on or disrupt U.S. infrastructure. U.S. Customs also temporarily halted shipments of Bitmain ASICs before releasing them months later. American Bitcoin reportedly acquired a fleet of Antminer units from Bitmain. What this means for markets and miners - Sudden regional shutdowns in China demonstrate how concentrated or opaque mining activity can inject short‑term volatility into network hashpower and mining difficulty adjustments. - Growing U.S. capacity and tighter scrutiny of Chinese hardware shift the strategic balance of mining economics and supply chains — a trend that miners, investors and policymakers will be watching closely. For ongoing coverage of how geopolitics, regulation and technology are reshaping Bitcoin mining, follow our crypto infrastructure updates. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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