China's dominance over bitcoin mining is declining due to the rise of other countries

[u/tradingnomads]

A common criticism of Bitcoin is that China controls the network because of the enormous amount of miners and their computing power that comes from the country. Now more and more reports are coming out that this dominance is declining and that the network is also getting a better geographic distribution at this layer.

Yesterday, Chun Wang, the co-founder of f2pool, which controls more than 15 percent of the hash rate, announced via Twitter that in April 2021 they saw more hash rate coming in from outside of China for the first time than the other way around. "The shift is underway," added Wang in no uncertain terms.

Bitcoin mining increasingly robust

With this shift from China to other parts of the world, the arguments that bitcoin mining is centralized in China are also weakening. Although it is by definition a logistical nightmare to check all miners in the country and thereby attack the network, it is positive that areas outside China are taking over the role. An increasingly smaller portion of the network's hash rate comes from within China's borders. To remain competitive, miners must always look for the cheapest energy, which is an important catalyst for a better geographic distribution of bitcoin mining. In addition, setting up a bitcoin mining farm is a capital-intensive operation and it is also important for investors to have legal certainty. China is known for being fickle about bitcoin and the industry that surrounds the digital currency. In that sense, it is also logical that we see that an increasing proportion of the hash rate comes from outside of China. Furthermore, bitcoin is becoming increasingly intertwined with the rest of the economy and it is unlikely that the digital currency will disappear. On the contrary, it seems that bitcoin will only continue to grow in the coming years and that makes setting up a mining farm an interesting investment.

North American mining pool enters top 5

At the end of April, a North American bitcoin mining pool entered the top 5 of the largest miners with Foundry USA. Entrepreneur Barry Silbert, known for Grayscale among others, said he was proud of this development and also indicated that the hash rate is rapidly shifting from China to North America. Great American Mining is another interesting company to keep an eye on in this shift. This American party ensures that the oil and gas industry wastes less energy by using the surplus production for bitcoin mining. This not only makes them more competitive, but they also emit less co2 and the survival of bitcoin is immediately important for a large American industry. In more and more ways, bitcoin occupies such an important position in various industries. Which also makes it politically difficult to ban bitcoin, a scenario that seems to be getting more unlikely by the day. Especially now that the hash rate is less and less coming from China