Cambridge study reveals spread of Chinese Bitcoin mining

Overall, the nation still enjoys a sizeable chunk of Bitcoin’s overall hash rate. Mining in China, however, appears to be fairly well distributed across the vast land mass.

China continues to be the leader in Bitcoin mining

Jameson Lopp, co-founder of CasaNodl, warned his followers about the new study on Twitter. It is based on the data from the participating mining consortia. Although it only makes up about two thirds of the total hash, it has been used to create an image of the distribution of miners worldwide and locally (to China). [CCAF]

The study is based on the assumption that the drag power distribution provided by data mining groups reflects the broader Bitcoin network. Of course there are limitations in the methodology used. However, the study provides the best picture of where the world’s major mining operations are today and how the distribution is changing over time. Dates are available from last September to today.

In terms of global distribution, China remains the largest Bitcoin mining nation with 65.08% of the total network hash rate. China is followed by the USA (7.24%), Russia (6.9%), Kazakhstan (6.17%), Malaysia (4.33%), Iran (3.82%) and Canada (0.82% ).

The study is also intended to provide an insight into the distribution of mining in each of these major mining centers. The data is currently only available for China.

Xinjiang Province leads Chinese mining with 35.76% of the hashrate. The rest are large companies in Sichuan (9.66%), Nei Mongol (8.07%), Yunnan (5.42%) and Beijing (1.73%). The provinces of Zhejiang, Chanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia each now account for less than 1% of the nation’s hash.

The Cambridge Alternative Finance Center plans to add additional data for other major global mining centers. The attached methodology section specifically mentions Siberia, the U.S. states of Washington and New York, and Quebec and Alberta in Canada as areas of particular interest.

Cambridge dates are far from perfect

According to the researchers themselves, the data from the Cambridge study are somewhat problematic. First of all, the image he created is based on only 37% of the total Bitcoin hashrate. The data used may not be as representative of the actual mining distribution as the researchers believe.

The second major limitation of the study is the use of VPNs. The researchers wrote:

[servicios de VPN o proxy] This can distort the overall geographic distribution and lead to overestimation of the hash rate in some provinces or countries.

This restriction caused special problems with data from the Chinese province of Zhejiang. To create a more representative picture of the researchers, they divided the hash of the problem region into other known regions that were involved in the relevant mining pools.

While the new study is far from perfect, it is still useful for identifying trends within the hash rate distribution. With the new updates promised by CCAF, the clearer picture of the distribution of mining on data is only becoming clearer.