China’s share of global electricity usage for bitcoin mining fell to under half for the first time this April, while Kazakhstan has catapulted to third place as its share of mining increased sixfold.
China’s global hashrate, the computational power required to mine new bitcoins, fell from over 75 per cent to 46 per cent of the global total between September 2019 and April 2021, according to data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. The following month, Beijing stepped up its crackdown on the energy-intensive industry, which it has been trying to curtail for close to a decade.
The data also provide the first clear look at Chinese crypto miners’ seasonal migration from Xinjiang in the west, which relies primarily on coal-powered plants, to southern regions of the country to take advantage of cheap hydroelectric power during the wet season.