China may have massive underground bitcoin mining operations despite ban last year, Cambridge data shows

China accounted for roughly a fifth of the bitcoin network’s hash rate at the end of 2021, after data showed it dropped to zero in July. Data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index suggests miners covered their tracks with overseas proxies until they deemed it safe. — SCMP

China has re-emerged as a major bitcoin mining hub, despite the country’s complete ban on the practice a year ago, according to data from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) on Tuesday.

From last September to January, traffic from China accounted for about 20% of bitcoin’s total hash rate, a measure of the network’s processing power for verifying transactions and mining new cryptocurrency tokens. The uptick in activity came after data suggested it had fallen to zero in July, following a ban on mining last May.