US Overtakes China as Biggest Bitcoin Mining Hub After Beijing Ban (ft.com) 46
The US overtook China as the world's biggest source of bitcoin mining two months after Beijing banned crypto mining this year, new data have revealed. From a report: China's share of the global hashrate -- the computational power required to create bitcoin -- fell from 44 per cent to zero between May and July, showed figures published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance on Wednesday. The country accounted for three-quarters of the global hashrate in 2019. The US share of the global hashrate increased from 17 per cent in April to 35 per in August, while Kazakhstan rose 10 percentage points to 18 per cent in the same period.
China's State Council, or cabinet, banned cryptocurrency mining and trading in May, citing environmental and financial concerns. The decision prompted an exodus of miners in search of cheap energy and crypto-friendly politicians. China's bitcoin mining ban resulted in the "great mining migration," said Sam Tabar, chief strategy officer at Bit Digital, a New York-based bitcoin miner. The company suspended its operations in China, which it had been winding down since October 2020, after the prohibition. Michel Rauchs, digital assets lead at the closely watched Cambridge tracker, noted that "the effect of the Chinese crackdown is an increased geographic distribution of hashrate across the world," adding that it could be seen as "a positive development for network security and the decentralised principles of bitcoin."
China's State Council, or cabinet, banned cryptocurrency mining and trading in May, citing environmental and financial concerns. The decision prompted an exodus of miners in search of cheap energy and crypto-friendly politicians. China's bitcoin mining ban resulted in the "great mining migration," said Sam Tabar, chief strategy officer at Bit Digital, a New York-based bitcoin miner. The company suspended its operations in China, which it had been winding down since October 2020, after the prohibition. Michel Rauchs, digital assets lead at the closely watched Cambridge tracker, noted that "the effect of the Chinese crackdown is an increased geographic distribution of hashrate across the world," adding that it could be seen as "a positive development for network security and the decentralised principles of bitcoin."
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As long as we aren't discussing how China collected corona virus samples, performed tests and gain of function manipulation, and then released a human transmissible virus... I don't think they care.
Queue it up... (Score:4, Informative)
This article is a somewhat misleading. A big chunk of hashrate has vanished and not merely moved.
"The decision prompted an exodus of miners in search of cheap energy and crypto-friendly politicians. China's bitcoin mining ban resulted in the "great mining migration," said Sam Tabar, chief strategy officer at Bit Digital, a New York-based bitcoin miner."
If we look at the overall hashrate instead of just each nation's share of it we see the overall hashrate has dropped by about 25% from peak going from 197EH/s to 139EH/s. This is important because bitcoin is now doing the same job with less power. This makes room for more green power usage. Moreover the power infrastructure of the US is dramatically cleaner than China. Since bitcoin was always a neutral technology changing the underlying power infrastructure magically reduces its carbon footprint as well.
https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/hashrate-chart
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Here you go Pyrite Pete trolls. Bust out those links to urban dictionary entries you added!
Wow, triggered much, Pyrite Pete? [urbandictionary.com]
Haha! I particularly like the nice own of linking to shaitand's own UD entry.
Perhaps I should go an add one in for "Hypocrite" as "insert picture of shaitand here" lol
The US has an EPA (Score:2)
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Since I'm an idiot and this per capita measure is what matters in our fight against global warming then we should proceed from that hypothesis immediately. I propose we decommission all fossil fuel energy production in the United States and reopen it in the form of coal fueled plants in India which they can export to the US. Since there are more people in India the same amount of CO2 will have a far more marginal impact on their per capita numbers while removing it will ha
USA #1 (Score:2)
The US overtook China as the world's biggest source of bitcoin mining two months after Beijing banned crypto mining this year, new data have revealed.
Nothing is more American than getting to the top by having your competition banned. Congratulations USA, you are #1!
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Am I the only one annoyed by "data have revealed"?
Yes, I know that data originated as the plural form of datum. But datum only exists today in obscure contexts, such as geodetic datums, and the plural used there is datums, not data. "Data" today is a collective noun, whose elements are data points, not datums. And collective nouns take singular verbs. Would you say "The crowd have revealed"? "The flock have flown"? "The choir have sung"? "The team have played"?
Languages change. Data is not a plural; it
Re: USA #1 (Score:2)
I like you Rei. Cheerio.
Cool. Now the next step (Score:2, Insightful)
How do we stop it here? Do we have to legislate away this example of the human race's abject stupidity or can we block it at the ISP level?
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Looks like the propaganda machine is in full force.
I can't wait for the "look how awesome inflation is" crowd to mysteriously start parroting headlines here:
"America Needs Higher, Longer-Lasting Inflation"
"The benefits of moderately rising prices and wages outweigh the costs."
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Re:Cool. Now the next step (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks like the propaganda machine is in full force.
What propaganda machine? Are you claiming that a "currency" which is woefully incapable of clearing transactions quickly, is used entirely by speculators, is not actively traded for goods or services, and uses the same amount of power as Poland to achieve its... well it hasn't achieved anything... are you saying it isn't abject stupidity?
If so you're right, someone here has fallen for some propaganda, but you're not going to like when you find out who.
I can't wait for the "look how awesome inflation is" crowd to mysteriously start parroting headlines here
You mean people who studied basic economics at school? Dude Business Degrees are dime a dozen. It's the throwaway degree that every moron has. Even the person flipping burgers for you at Maccas can tell you why steady low level inflation is required for economic efficiency at this point.
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A question google could answer for you. 2-4% depending on the economic theory. Whether the fed is failing to achieve that target or not has nothing to do with bitcoin, nor is crypto the solution.
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"The benefits of moderately rising prices and wages outweigh the costs."
Well it's certainly better than the alternative of decreasing prices and wages.
You seem clueless enough to join team Lucko. I'm sure he'll make room.
As a US Citizen this Sucks. (Score:1)
Most of the miners that are using retired energy plants aren't even legal, yet somehow they have not been shut down...
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Count me in! (Score:3)
With winter and the coming cold, I plan on using my gaming PC for mining. If I'm going to pay for electricity to heat the place, I might as well do some mining and use the waste heat.
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Wait, you use electricity for heating without the efficiency of a heatpump? WTF is wrong with you? Can't you think of a less efficient way to keep your house warm like leaving the fridge door open?
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FIY, nearly 95% of old houses (I'd guess pre-1990~2000) in Canada are heated this way, i.e. baseboard heating systems.
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Yeah I know. Canada just loves fighting with the USA and Australia for the title of "Western country with worst emissions per capita due to horrendously wasteful use of energy".
Just because some countries are shitty doesn't mean we should benchmark ourselves against them and adopt it as an acceptable standard.
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Because we use electric heating without a heat pump? I didn't know hydro power generated so much CO2. /sarcasm
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Yep. Because 20% of your energy is still dirty. Because you implacably chose to waste rather than reduce. Imagine the good you could do for the world if you didn't waste your clean energy and instead exported it to Americans to get them to stop snorting lines of oil from the back of their rifles. Or heck you could shutdown your coal power plants. But nah, let's just fuck the environment instead.
I wouldn't attempt to use sarcasm again when you portray yourself so stupidly. North America is incredibly wastefu
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Send me the money and I'll have an expensive heat pump retrofitted to my fifty-years-old house.
How embarassing (Score:2)
Hooray for us (Score:2)
US "Overtakes" China? (Score:2)
That's like saying one marathon runner "overtook" another runner who decided to stop at the drink table and then sat down in a lawn chair to watch the other racers.
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