Amid the crackdown on cryptocurrency miners in China, several mining machines are being shipped to the US, a mass of miners migration seems to be at the door.
The mining power of Bitcoin (BTC) is beginning to shift towards the United States of America amid a strong set of prohibitions and bannings carried out by China.
A report on Monday shared by CoinDesk aligns with crescent speculation that cryptocurrency miners in China are intending to migrate to the United States of America due to the energy measures that the government of the Asian nation is taking against the industry.
CNBC representative Eunice Yoon reported on Monday that a Chinese logistics company in the city of Guangzhou, northwest of Hong Kong, has confirmed that it will bring three tons of Bitcoin mining machines right to Maryland, USA. The representative shared the information through his Twitter.
The commercial director of the firm Compass Mining, Thomas Heller, clarified during an exclusive interview with CoinDesk that the three tons of equipment would represent about 200 units of S19. Heller makes a clear reference to the Antminer S19, mining equipment manufactured by Bitmain that is proficient in mining Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and weighs about 15.2 kg.
Eunice Yoon thinks that even though the weight may seem like a large figure, Fenghua’s shipment is a very small load. The correspondent said that 3000 kg might sound huge, but when compared to the number of miners that go to shipping regularly, it is only a small batch.
Prohibitions Intensify in Chinese Territory
The news comes just as multiple reports are emerging about the Chinese government’s intensifying measures against cryptocurrency trading and mining. This Monday the People’s Bank of China, PBoC, urged institutions to quickly cut payment channels for cryptocurrency trading.
Several provinces in the country are facing banning measures around cryptocurrency mining amid the deployment of a government agenda to reduce carbon emissions. In recent weeks, the Changji local government ordered a complete shutdown of Bitcoin mining activities. And something similar has happened in Inner Mongolia and Qinghai province.
It is also vital to consider that China represents more than 65% of the world’s mining power, so the new policies could pose a significant risk to the Bitcoin network. The closure of mining operations reduces the hash power or “hash rate”, the unit of measurement of the processing power of the Bitcoin network.
A Migration of Miners to the US Might be Very Positive
In this regard, Heller estimated that at least 50 exahash per second of mining capacity in China have recently been shut down, or the equivalent of 526,000 S19 machines. (One EH equals 1 million TH). That currently represents about 80,000 metric tons of idle machinery.
“That’s if they were only S19. But there are also countless S9s and older generation units, so the total kg amount would be much higher”, Heller added to CoinDesk.
Although some people in the crypto world consider China’s ban measures as a direct attack on Bitcoin, others are claiming that this move could favor the largest cryptocurrency.
David Marcus, the co-creator and board member of Facebook’s cryptocurrency project, called China’s crackdown on Bitcoin mining and the industry’s migration to the US a huge development for the flagship cryptocurrency.
By: Jenson Nuñez
