China: Bitcoin Hashrate Drops After Rainstorms Hit Sichuan Province
Bitcoin mining pools in China, including large and mid-sized operations, are seeing their daily hashrate drops by “10 to 20 percent” following monsoons in Sichuan, reported Coindesk on Tuesday.
Rain Spoils the Day
The Sichuan province is said to control over 50% (even 60%) of Bitcoin’s total hashrate. It is one of the few regions in the world with cheap electricity, a highly accessible transport network, readily available manpower, and a naturally cool climate.
And now, the mountainous region found southwest of China is seeing massive climate activity that has caused flooding and heavy rainstorms in the region. As per local reports, this has increased in the past two days.
The rainstorms have led to electricity cut-offs in major parts of the region. Hydroelectric plants, which supply electricity to the area, have stopped generating power to help discharge the flooding. Meanwhile, some regions are also experiencing a lack of internet (important for mining) and a breakdown in telecommunication.
This has caused mining farms in the region to unplug from the network, for now. The rain showers are still ongoing, and there is no prediction of when they would subside. Bitcoin prices are not affected, for now.
Data from BTC.com, a tracker of mining and provider of crypto data, shows the world’s top four bitcoin mining pools – PoolIn, F2Pool, BTC.com, and Antpool (all China-based entities) have each seen a hash rate drop between 10 to 20% over the last 24 hours. Together, the computing power connected to these four pools accounts for around 50% of Bitcoin network’s total.
Bitcoin Hash Rate Drops
Kevin Pan, CEO of mining pool Poolin, said in a Weibo post on Tuesday that mines in China, in addition to mining farms being forced to unplug due to electricity and internet disruptions, some have also proactively paused operations ahead of time and evacuated their on-site staff in advance for safety precautions.
Meanwhile, the Xinhua News Agency, a local publication, said the accumulated rain volume in a dozen most impacted cities in Sichuan last has already “surpassed the average August monthly volume in any year’s record.”
However, it must be noted the monsoon season in China occurs every year and brings about abundant rain, and thus excessive hydropower resources, that have turned it into an attractive area for mining firms to come and set up shop.
Meanwhile, Coindesk noted Bitcoin’s last 3-day and the 1-day average hash rate has dropped to around 123 and 110 exahashes per second (EH/s), respectively. These numbers are down over 3% and 10%, respectively, from the 7-day rolling average around 127 EH/s, which is still at an all-time high.
