America is quickly becoming a mining haven, as thousands of exiled miners from China have started setting up their bases in the US and its neighboring countries. According to analysts, roughly 500,000 former Chinese mining rigs are looking for a new home in the United States, with the country’s contribution to the global hash rate slated to grow to nearly 40% by the end of 2022.
According to data from Cambridge, in September 2019, China accounted for a considerable 75.5% share of the global Bitcoin hash rate. By the end of 2020, that figure had fallen to just 46%, indicating a shift to the West even before China began its crackdown on regional mining farms. In view of this, industrial mining companies in the US had already been building up infrastructure, hoping that sooner or later China’s large population of mining rigs would migrate to the West.
Back in 2018 when Bitcoin and Ethereum crashed, the prices of graphics cards and ASIC miners were in free-fall, allowing large mining firms in the US to consolidate their position, adding additional space for foreign cryptominers in their backyards. When China outlawed mining earlier this year, things started falling into place. By April 2021, the US accounted for 17% of the global Bitcoin hash rate, an increase of 151% from September last year.
To top it off, this share reportedly doesn’t include the hash rate added by the newly exiled Chinese miners in the American continent. Actual figures should be closer to the 30% mark, bringing the US nearly on par with China’s share at the end of 2020.
Source: CNBC
