The Bitcoin Mining Map offered by Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows the region-wise concentration of the BTC hash rate. It demonstrates that China alone dominates 65% of the total global hash rate.
An academic research center – Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) – affiliated with the Cambridge University has unveiled a new tool dubbed Bitcoin Mining Map. This is basically a Bitcoin mining tracker showing countries with the highest concentration of mining activity.
The tool visualizes the monthly share of the global hash rate for different countries. Besides, it also offers in-depth analysis and data for comparing different Bitcoin mining provinces in China. The tool shows that China concentrates a massive 65% of the total global hash rate while the U.S. and Russia have just 7% each. The official announcement reads:
“The Bitcoin Mining Map visualizes the approximate geographic distribution of global Bitcoin hashrate. The average hashrate share by country is available for display in monthly intervals starting from September 2019. In addition, a second map with an exclusive focus on China’s hashrate distribution by province is provided”.
The data on the Bitcoin Mining Map tool has been curated from three mining pools like BTC.com, viaBTC, and Poolin. Poolin is currently the world’s second-largest mining pool with a 15% share. On the other hand, BTC.com and viaBTC come in fourth and fifth positions.
The CCAF has assured that it will offer a more comprehensive report and offer an update on new pools. In an email to CryptoX, Apolline Blandin, CCAF’s cryptocurrency and blockchain lead, said:
“This data may validate some market intuitions, drive greater transparency, and help participants in the conduct of their operations. From a research perspective, whether academic or industry research, this data can help better calibrate and adjust the parameters of researchers’ models.”
Tracking Bitcoin Mining Activity in China
CCAF says that it is difficult to track the Bitcoin mining activity in China since several miners use Virtual Private Networks (VPN) to mask their IP addresses. This makes it difficult for them to pin down the location. CCAF noted that this was more prominent in China’s Zhejiang province. It reads:
“To mitigate this effect, we have divided the hashrate of Zhejiang province proportionally among other Chinese provinces listed in the pool’s dataset”.
Also, the Bitcoin Mining Map from Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance shows China’s Xinjiang province has the highest concentration of hashrate. Reportedly, this new tool will also update its data for China’s Sichuan province which also has a massive mining concentration.
“While the current version seems overly biased towards China, there are reasons to believe that the sample nevertheless provides a reasonable approximation of the actual hash rate distribution. For one, all participating pools maintain servers in various geographies across the globe to serve their foreign customer base with minimal latency. Furthermore, Chinese pools have dominated Bitcoin mining in recent years, among others because of their relatively low fee structure which has attracted numerous non-Chinese haters,” wrote CCAF in its announcement.
Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
