After China, Bitcoin Miners Earned 35,065 BTC in August

Bitcoin miners’ earnings peaked at 35,065 BTC in August as exiled miners from China continue their search for new operation bases, according to the latest Luxor hashrate index. 

The result shows a rise of up to 23% from July’s, 33% from June, and up 15% from May. Hashrate grew by about 38% from the beginning of July to the end of August as well, as North American powerhouses turn out new shipments of the newest equipment, the index shows. 

After China’s crackdown on crypto mining activities within its borders which initially sent crypto prices tumbling but later recovered, many miners chose to relocate as one of the alternatives available to them.

Their migration somewhat supports a shift that seems to blend with a change that is seeing more businesses warm up to the prospects of Bitcoin in recent months. Though some of the initiatives still involve Chinese entities but their operational bases are now far from China.  

Miners innovate growth strategies 

China’s SOS Limited partnered with Niagara Development in June to carry out cryptocurrency mining operations and construct an international standardized Digital Super Computing Operation Center as part of the expansion into North America. 

In July, Chinese-run Bit Digital and Digihost Technology agreed to co-mine with a 100 MW Bitcoin mining system that will facilitate an additional increase in hashrate of approximately 2 EH between the companies, and a total increase of approximately 2.4 EH.

Also in July, owners of the entire mining pool business operated under BTC.com, BIT Mining, made a purchase of 2,500 new Bitcoin mining machines for approximately US$6.6 million. The company expects to deploy the machines to increase its total hash rate capacity by approximately 165 peta hashes per second.

Canaan got a purchase order for 17,352 Bitcoin mining machines with an aggregate operating hash power of 1.5EH from Mawson Infrastructure Group in August. The order is in addition to Mawson’s previous order for 11,760 mining machines with a hash power of 1.05EH. 

In what has been dubbed as a potential world’s largest Bitcoin mining machine deal made to date, Canaan also secured a purchase order in August for an additional purchase of up to 20,000 units of its mining machines from Genesis Digital Assets. The equipment manufacturer granted Genesis Digital Assets an option to purchase up to 180,000 additional mining machines.

The latest is the tripartite partnership between ISW Holdings (which is transitioning to “BlockQuarry” pending name change) Bitmain and Bit5ive in a deal to acquire 56,000 Bitmain mining rigs pairing with 200 mw of power at the company’s “POD- CITY” location in Georgia.

Bitcoin hashrate future outlook

The Luxor index indicates that August’s average block time was nearly 2 minutes below the targeted average at a stunning 8.1 minutes which is unlike in May when half of the network went offline following China’s crackdown.

Though the Bitcoin hashrate grew by 38% from July to the end of August, they expect it to continue surging well into 2022 as more capacity is built out in mining operations across North America and elsewhere. The new operations, which will seek to absorb the miners from China, will complement the turning on of new generation equipment on backorder, they say.