The United States has overtaken China as the world's largest Bitcoin miner

The United States has overtaken China as the world's largest Bitcoin miner.

The United States has overtaken China as the global leader in Bitcoin mining, according to new data from the University of Cambridge.

Following a major outflow of miners from China after the Chinese government prohibited mining earlier this year, the United States currently has a 35.4 percent share of the market. Kazakhstan and Russia came in second and third, with 18.1 percent and 11% of the vote, respectively.

"The government-mandated ban on crypto mining in China has had the immediate effect of a 38 percent drop in the global network hash rate by June 2021, which roughly corresponds to the share of China's hash rate before the crackdown, suggesting that Chinese miners are shutting down operations at the same time," said Michel Rauchs, digital asset lead at the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance.

The Impact of China on Bitcoin Mining

China has long prohibited bitcoin trade, and earlier this year it also prohibited cryptocurrency mining. The ban resulted in a major exodus of mining corporations from the superpower.

This has caused hashrates in other nations to rise, with the United States having only 16.8% of the worldwide hashrate share in April 2021, implying that the American market share has climbed by 105 percent.

Kazakhstan and Russia, meanwhile, have boosted their share of the market by 120 percent and 61 percent, respectively.

Canada (9.55 percent), Ireland (4.68 percent), Malaysia (4.59 percent), Germany (4.48 percent), and Iran (3.11 percent) are the next greatest hashrates behind the three new mining giants.

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"An increase in the geographic distribution of hashrate around the world as a result of China's crackdown can be considered a beneficial development for network security and Bitcoin's decentralized principles," Rauchs noted.

Bitcoin Mining Causes Environmental Problems Bitcoin mining has long been chastised for its well-documented environmental impact. The annual energy consumption of the mining industry is measured in terawatt hours (TWh).

For one hour, one unit of energy is comparable to produce one trillion watts. It's frequently used to track a country's annual energy consumption.

The Bitcoin network currently consumes little about 100 TWh per year. If the Bitcoin network were a country, it would rank near the top of the list when it comes to electricity usage.

However, it is crucial to evaluate how much of the global mining industry is driven by non-renewable (or carbon-intensive) resources in order to assess how terrible mining is for the environment.

Only 39% of the world's Bitcoin mining comes from sustainable energy sources, according to a study issued by the University of Cambridge in September 2020.

Since then, dubious claims have been made that 50% of the world's mining is powered by renewable energy.

However, using Cambridge's numbers, the Bitcoin network's CO2 emissions are nearly the same as 47 billion pounds of coal burned, 7.7 million houses' annual energy consumption, or 4 billion gallons of gasoline consumed.