{"id":92431,"date":"2025-12-19T17:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T14:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=92431"},"modified":"2025-12-22T11:00:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T08:00:28","slug":"experts-dismiss-overstated-link-between-chinese-raids-and-bitcoin-hashrate-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/experts-dismiss-overstated-link-between-chinese-raids-and-bitcoin-hashrate-drop\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysts Say Connection of Bitcoin Hashrate Fall to China Crackdown Is Exaggerated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The sharp 8% decline in the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-are-hashrate-and-mining-difficulty-in-cryptocurrencies\">Bitcoin network&#8217;s hashrate<\/a> was not solely due to China and was temporary in nature, reports <a href=\"https:\/\/theminermag.com\/news\/2025-12-18\/xinjiang-fud-bitcoin-hashrate\">TheMinerMag<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On December 13, rumors spread across social media about the disconnection of 200,000 to 400,000 devices used for mining the leading cryptocurrency. One of the first to <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/bitcoin-hashrate-drops-8-amid-rumors-of-mining-farm-raids-in-china\">highlight<\/a> this was Jack Kong, former co-chair of miner Canaan and founder of Nano Labs.<\/p>\n<p>Some speculated that the number could reach 500,000 units with a capacity of 2 GW.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Roughly ~2GW of Bitcoin mining has been shut down in Xinjiang China \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddf3.<\/p>\n<p>There are now ~500,000 displaced mining machines looking for new homes<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Kevin Zhang (@SinoCrypto) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SinoCrypto\/status\/2000509718247387359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Several days later, Kong reported that the blockchain&#8217;s digital gold hashrate had decreased by 8%\u2014approximately 100 EH\/s.<\/p>\n<p>The metric indeed fell, but not solely due to the shutdown of mining farms in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n<p>According to experts, the primary contributors were US-based pools. The most significant declines were recorded by Foundry USA and Luxor due to cold weather and energy consumption restrictions. Together, they accounted for about 200 EH\/s of the total decrease.<\/p>\n<p>The hashrate of major Chinese-origin pools\u2014Antpool, F2Pool, ViaBTC, SpiderPool, and Binance Pool\u2014dropped by 100 EH\/s. Many of these are located outside China, so some may have been affected by issues beyond the country&#8217;s borders.<\/p>\n<p>By December 17, their metrics had nearly recovered, indicating a temporary glitch rather than equipment shutdown.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-3f7877adeb7bf9db-1371942716591498-1024x700.png\" alt=\"Mining pool hashrate\" class=\"wp-image-272128\" srcset=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-3f7877adeb7bf9db-1371942716591498-1024x700.png 1024w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-3f7877adeb7bf9db-1371942716591498-300x205.png 300w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-3f7877adeb7bf9db-1371942716591498-768x525.png 768w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-3f7877adeb7bf9db-1371942716591498-1536x1049.png 1536w, https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-3f7877adeb7bf9db-1371942716591498.png 1900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Source: Miner Weekly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SpiderPool was an exception, with its hashrate remaining lower by ~20 EH\/s as of December 18. TheMinerMag suggests this indirectly confirms real but limited-scale shutdowns.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>&#8220;It is quite likely that some miners in Xinjiang voluntarily shut down over the weekend to avoid attention during inspections, then quietly returned to the network when the pressure eased,&#8221; they added.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Amidst Bitcoin&#8217;s situation, <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-litecoin-ltc\">Litecoin<\/a> stood out\u2014on December 15, its hashrate fell by 20%, from 3.38 PH\/s to 2.65 PH\/s, and has yet to recover.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>&#8220;This suggests that the mining revival in the region was not limited to Bitcoin, and other <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-the-proof-of-work-pow-algorithm\"><em>PoW<\/em><\/a><em>-based networks may be more vulnerable,&#8221; experts concluded.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In late November, China&#8217;s share in mining the leading cryptocurrency <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/chinas-share-in-bitcoin-mining-surpasses-14\">exceeded<\/a> 14%, placing the country third globally in this metric.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sharp 8% decline in the Bitcoin network&#8217;s hashrate was not solely due to China and was temporary in nature, reports TheMinerMag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Bitcoin's hashrate drop linked to US pools, not just China, says TheMinerMag.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18,133,1137,1138],"class_list":["post-92431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitcoin","tag-china","tag-cryptocurrency-mining","tag-opinions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"207","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Bitcoin's hashrate drop linked to US pools, not just China, says TheMinerMag.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92431"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92481,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92431\/revisions\/92481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}