When Beijing launched its sweeping Bitcoin mining ban in 2021, many analysts declared the era of Chinese dominance in mining definitively over. The country had controlled more than half of global Bitcoin hashrate, and the sudden shutdown triggered the biggest mining migration in crypto history, with rigs flooding into North America, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
For a while, the narrative seemed settled. The United States surged ahead, ultimately securing more than 40 percent of global hashrate by the end of 2024, while Russia and other energy-rich jurisdictions quietly expanded their share. China, meanwhile, appeared to have vanished from official mining maps.
But the latest numbers are turning that story on its head. Fresh data from industry trackers and reports from miners on the ground reveal that China’s Bitcoin mining comeback is well underway. Despite the national ban, underground and semi-official operations have quietly pushed the country back to roughly 14 percent of global hashrate, once again making it the world’s third-largest mining hub.
This resurgence has profound implications. It affects the geographic distribution of hash power, the economics of Bitcoin miners, the perception of regulatory risk and the long-term security model of the network itself. In this in-depth analysis, we will unpack what China’s return means for Bitcoin hashrate, global competition and the future of proof-of-work mining.
From Dominance To Disappearance: A Short History Of China And Bitcoin Mining
The Pre-Ban Era: China As Hashrate Superpower
Before 2021, China was the undisputed powerhouse of Bitcoin mining. Estimates from academic and industry sources regularly placed its share of global hashrate above 60 percent, with some periods likely even higher.
Several factors supported this dominance. There was abundant cheap electricity, especially seasonal hydroelectric surpluses in provinces like Sichuan and Yunnan. Industrial zones in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia offered low-cost coal-based power. Chinese manufacturers controlled the vast majority of ASIC miner production, and domestic miners had prime access to the latest, most efficient rigs.
This combination of cheap power and cutting-edge hardware made China the most profitable environment on earth for Bitcoin miners. The country’s internal mining ecosystem became dense and sophisticated, with hosting facilities, logistics networks and financial services all tailored to crypto mining.
The 2021 Crackdown: Hashrate Crashes And Miners Scatter
In mid-2021, Beijing abruptly reversed course. Citing concerns about financial stability, energy consumption and environmental goals, authorities launched a nationwide crackdown on cryptocurrency mining and trading. Large farms were closed, data centers were raided and local officials faced pressure to show results.
The effect on the network was immediate. Global Bitcoin hashrate plunged as Chinese miners powered down. The network’s mining difficulty eventually adjusted, but the shock highlighted how concentrated hash power in one jurisdiction can become a systemic risk.
Thousands of miners began a massive relocation. Many moved equipment to the United States, Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia and other regions that promised more predictable crypto mining regulations and access to industrial-scale power. The map of Bitcoin mining geography shifted in a matter of months. For a time, China’s official share of hashrate appeared to drop near zero in public datasets. The era of Chinese dominance was declared over, and the story moved on to new leaders in North America and Eurasia.
China’s Bitcoin Mining Comeback: What The Data Shows
Back To Third Place: Around 14% Of Global Hashrate
Fast forward to late 2025, and the picture looks very different. Updated mining maps and analyses from firms tracking pool-level and IP-level data now estimate that China has quietly reclaimed around 14 percent of global Bitcoin hashrate, putting it back in third place behind the United States and Russia.
Reports indicate that Chinese miners are contributing on the order of 145 exahashes per second (EH/s) to the network, while the U.S. commands roughly 38 to 40 percent, and Russia slightly more than China. This is not a full return to pre-ban levels, but it is far from irrelevant. A double-digit percentage of global hash power concentrated in a country that officially still prohibits mining is a significant development for anyone concerned with decentralization, regulatory risk and the resilience of the Bitcoin network.
Underground, Semi-Official And Grey-Zone Operations
How is this possible under a ban? The answer lies in a patchwork of underground, semi-official and grey-area arrangements. Investigations and miner interviews suggest that operations are thriving in energy-rich provinces such as Xinjiang and Sichuan, often by piggybacking on surplus electricity, informal deals with local facilities or mislabelled workloads in data centers.
Some setups keep a deliberately low profile, distributing rigs across multiple small sites instead of one giant farm. Others are integrated into general-purpose data centers that ostensibly provide cloud or AI compute, while dedicating a portion of capacity to Bitcoin mining. Enforcement pressure seems to vary by region, and local economic incentives sometimes outweigh strict adherence to national guidelines. In effect, China’s Bitcoin mining comeback has been stealthy rather than officially sanctioned. Yet the aggregate impact on global hashrate is real and measurable.
Why Is Bitcoin Mining Returning To China?
Cheap And Stranded Energy Still Rules
The most important factor underpinning the comeback is the same one that drove China’s initial dominance: inexpensive energy. Provinces with abundant hydro, coal or wind power continue to generate surplus electricity that is not always efficiently consumed by local industry or households. In such contexts, Bitcoin mining becomes an attractive outlet. Facility operators can monetize otherwise wasted energy, especially during off-peak periods, by hosting miners or running their own rigs. For local stakeholders, this income can help justify investments in infrastructure or offset costs.
As global Bitcoin price has recovered from previous lows and mining economics have improved, the appeal of turning spare electrons into digital value has only grown stronger. China’s vast and diverse energy landscape remains fertile ground for this calculation.
Economic Incentives And Policy Flexibility At The Local Level
In practice, Beijing’s stance on crypto remains officially strict, but actual implementation is nuanced. Regional authorities face competing priorities: they must follow national directives, but they are also judged on economic performance, job creation and efficient use of local resources. Reports suggest that in some provinces, enforcement of the Bitcoin mining ban has softened, especially when mining can be framed as data processing, AI training or high-performance computing.
This informal flexibility allows miners to operate as long as they avoid attracting attention, comply with broader energy and environmental rules, and maintain relationships with local partners. The result is an ecosystem where crypto mining is neither fully legal nor fully eradicated, but tolerated in specific contexts.
Rising Bitcoin Price And Post-Halving Economics
Another reason for the comeback is simple: rising Bitcoin price and post-halving dynamics have improved revenue potential. Even with higher global mining difficulty, efficient operations in low-cost regions can still achieve solid margins.
Following each Bitcoin halving, block rewards drop in coin terms, but historically, long-term price appreciation has often offset this reduction. Miners with access to cheap power and modern ASIC miners can survive and even thrive in this environment. For Chinese operators with legacy relationships, technical expertise and access to hardware, the math once again looks compelling.
What China’s Comeback Means For Global Hashrate
A More Crowded, Competitive Landscape
A renewed Chinese presence in mining makes an already competitive arena even more intense. The United States, which has become the leading Bitcoin mining center with over 40 percent of global hashrate, now faces revived competition from a country that still has deep mining know-how and strong hardware ties.
Russia and other countries that gained market share after the 2021 ban also have to contend with this returning heavyweight. On a global level, the network’s total Bitcoin hashrate continues to trend upward as new rigs are deployed across multiple continents. This is good for security but tough for margins. Increasing hashrate translates into higher mining difficulty, which compresses profits for all but the most efficient operators. China’s comeback therefore accelerates an existing trend: only miners with cheap energy, high-efficiency hardware and disciplined operations are likely to remain profitable over the long term.
Decentralization, Or A New Form Of Concentration?
From one perspective, China’s 14 percent share actually looks like an improvement in decentralization compared to the pre-ban era, when Chinese mines dominated more than half of the network. Today’s hashrate is more geographically dispersed, with the U.S., Russia, China and several other countries all holding significant chunks of capacity.
However, some critics worry that an underground, opaque mining scene in China introduces its own risks. Because operations are semi-hidden, it is harder to assess their scale, coordination and potential susceptibility to state pressure. If enforcement priorities shift, a substantial amount of hash power could be switched off or redirected quickly, causing new shocks. In other words, China’s Bitcoin mining comeback may both support decentralization at a global level and reintroduce a layer of uncertainty about how stable that decentralization really is.
Implications For Miners Inside And Outside China
For Chinese Miners: Risk, Reward And Reinvention
For miners operating within China, the comeback is as much about risk management as it is about profit. Running Bitcoin mining farms in a banned environment exposes operators to legal and business hazards, yet the potential upside can be too great to ignore. To manage this tension, many Chinese miners have adopted lower-profile strategies. They may distribute equipment across multiple smaller facilities, disguise mining workloads as generic compute, or partner with existing data centers that already have regulatory cover. This is a shift from the earlier era of massive, highly visible farms.
At the same time, Chinese companies remain central to the global mining supply chain. Big manufacturers of ASIC mining rigs, such as Bitmain, Canaan and MicroBT, still dominate equipment production, even as they expand manufacturing into the United States to navigate tariffs and geopolitical pressure. This means Chinese miners enjoy both local power advantages and close connections to hardware sources, but they operate under a political cloud that can change with little warning.
For Overseas Miners: Squeezed Margins And Strategic Shifts
For miners outside China, particularly in the United States and other major hubs, the resurgence adds a new competitive layer. As underground Chinese operations push global Bitcoin hashrate higher, mining difficulty ratchets up, squeezing margins for everyone.
Publicly listed miners, especially in the U.S., must now navigate a world where they face not only rising energy costs and regulatory scrutiny, but also renewed competition from lower-cost, lower-profile rivals abroad. Some respond by investing in more efficient liquid-cooled rigs, by securing long-term power agreements or by diversifying into ancillary businesses like high-performance computing for AI. In this environment, scale and efficiency become crucial. Miners with access to cheap renewables, advanced hardware and strong balance sheets are better equipped to handle rising difficulty and post-halving reward cuts. Those operating at the edge of profitability may find it increasingly challenging to survive.
Network Security And Regulatory Questions
Stronger Security Through Higher Hashrate
From a purely technical perspective, a higher total Bitcoin hashrate enhances network security. More hash power means it is more expensive and difficult for any attacker to gain control of enough mining capacity to perform a 51 percent attack or double-spend. In that sense, China’s returning contribution to hashrate helps reinforce the robustness of the Bitcoin network.
A geographically diverse set of miners, spread across multiple jurisdictions, also makes it harder for any single government or actor to unilaterally disrupt the network. To that extent, the combination of U.S., Russian, Chinese and other mining hubs can be seen as a net positive.
Policy Contradictions And Long-Term Uncertainty
However, the regulatory contradictions are striking. On paper, China still maintains a national ban on Bitcoin mining. In reality, data shows that mining is back in force. This raises questions about how stable the current informal tolerance really is. A renewed enforcement drive could again disrupt global hashrate and shake market sentiment.
Outside China, authorities are also watching closely. There are parallel concerns in the United States about the security implications of relying heavily on Chinese-made mining rigs, with ongoing investigations into whether such hardware could pose espionage or infrastructure risks. These overlapping regulatory and security debates mean that China’s Bitcoin mining comeback is not just a story about economics and technology. It is also deeply tied to geopolitics, energy policy and national security.
What This All Means For The Future Of Bitcoin Mining
A More Mature, Industrial And Political Industry
The era when Bitcoin mining was dominated by hobbyists and informal outfits is long gone. Today’s mining landscape is industrial, capital-intensive and increasingly political. Decisions about where rigs are located, who manufactures them and what energy sources they use are entangled with tariffs, environmental rules and national strategy.
China’s re-emergence highlights that bans and crackdowns do not simply erase economic incentives; they often push them into new forms and new channels. As long as Bitcoin retains significant value and as long as there is stranded or cheap energy available, miners will seek ways to operate, whether fully regulated or not.
For Miners And Investors: Focus On Fundamentals
For miners, investors and observers, the key takeaway from China’s Bitcoin mining comeback is the need to focus on fundamentals. On the operational side, that means understanding energy costs, hardware efficiency, regulatory risk and capital structure. On the investment side, it means recognizing that Bitcoin hashrate trends, geographic shifts and policy developments all feed into the long-term health of the network. Short-term headlines will come and go, but the deeper story is about the evolving balance between decentralization, profitability and regulation. China’s return is one dramatic chapter in that ongoing narrative.
Conclusion
China’s renewed presence in Bitcoin mining is a reminder that the network is shaped not only by code, but by human incentives, political realities and energy economics. A country that once dominated, then seemingly vanished from the mining map, has quietly reclaimed a meaningful share of global hashrate, despite an official ban that remains on the books.
For the Bitcoin network, this comeback simultaneously strengthens security and complicates the decentralization story. For miners in China, it offers renewed profit potential under ongoing regulatory risk. For miners elsewhere, it adds competition and reinforces the need for relentless efficiency. Looking ahead, the future of Bitcoin mining will likely be defined by a delicate balance between technological progress, energy transitions, regulatory experiments and geopolitical shifts. China’s current role is a powerful example of how quickly that balance can change.
FAQs
Q: Why did China ban Bitcoin mining in the first place?
China banned Bitcoin mining in 2021 for several reasons that officials framed as national priorities. Authorities cited concerns about financial stability, arguing that speculative crypto activity could threaten the broader economy and undermine capital controls. They also pointed to the high energy consumption of proof-of-work mining, which clashed with the country’s emissions and climate goals, especially in coal-dependent regions. Finally, there were worries about illicit finance and the difficulty of supervising a fast-growing, largely unregulated crypto market. Together, these factors led to a sweeping crackdown that forced many mining operations offline or out of the country.
Q: How has China managed to regain 14% of Bitcoin hashrate despite the ban?
China’s ability to regain around 14 percent of global Bitcoin hashrate comes down to a combination of cheap energy, technical expertise and informal flexibility in enforcement. Many miners shifted to quieter, more distributed operations in energy-rich provinces such as Xinjiang and Sichuan, where surplus electricity makes crypto mining economically attractive. Some miners run rigs within data centers that present their activity as generic computing rather than open Bitcoin mining. Local authorities, motivated by economic incentives, sometimes tolerate this activity as long as it does not create political problems. As Bitcoin price recovered and mining economics improved, these underground and semi-official operations scaled up enough to become visible again in global hashrate measurements.
Q: What does China’s mining comeback mean for Bitcoin’s security?
From a technical standpoint, China’s mining comeback generally strengthens Bitcoin security because a higher overall hashrate makes attacks more expensive and difficult. More hash power distributed across multiple countries, including the United States, Russia and China, raises the cost of any attempt to control or disrupt the network. At the same time, the fact that much of China’s mining is underground introduces some uncertainty. If the government decided to strictly enforce the ban again, a significant portion of hash power could disappear or be reconfigured quickly, causing sudden changes in mining difficulty and potentially affecting block times. Overall, though, the increased hashrate from China is more of a security benefit than a risk, even if it adds complexity to the decentralization picture.
Q: How does China’s return to mining affect miners in other countries?
For miners in other countries, especially in the United States and other major hubs, China’s Bitcoin mining comeback intensifies competition. As Chinese operations add more hash power to the network, Bitcoin mining difficulty rises, meaning that the same hardware earns fewer coins over time. This squeezes margins for miners who have higher electricity costs, less efficient machines or weaker financing. In response, overseas miners are increasingly focused on securing long-term energy deals, investing in the latest ASIC miners, and diversifying their revenue streams, for example by offering high-performance computing for AI workloads alongside traditional mining. The more efficient and industrialized a mining operation becomes, the better positioned it is to withstand the extra pressure created by China’s return.
Q: Is Bitcoin mining likely to become fully legal again in China?
At this stage, it is unclear whether Bitcoin mining will be fully legalized again in China. Official policy still frames crypto activity as a risk to financial stability and energy planning, and there has been no public reversal of the 2021 ban. However, the resurgence of underground and semi-official mining, combined with hints of a softer stance toward some digital asset initiatives, suggests that the picture is more nuanced than a simple yes or no. Some analysts believe Beijing may eventually formalize a controlled, tightly regulated form of mining or digital asset infrastructure, especially if it can be aligned with national goals for data centers, AI and energy efficiency. Others think the government will continue to tolerate limited mining in practice while maintaining a formal ban to retain maximum flexibility. For now, China’s Bitcoin mining comeback remains a story of pragmatic adaptation under ambiguous policy rather than a clear return to legality.
