LONDON, United Kingdom | US bitcoin miners, which enable transaction validation and the creation of cryptocurrency, are now the top producers in the world, while activity has completely disappeared in China, according to a study published Wednesday.
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“The new data, which runs until the end of August, shows that the United States concentrates 35.4% (of activity, note), against 16.8% at the end of April, followed by Kazakhstan with 18.1% (against 8.2%) and Russia 11% (against 6.8%) ”, comments in an article Michel Rauchs, author of the study from the University of Cambridge.
To make the decentralized bitcoin network work, processors validate transactions and prove their participation in the exercise by seeking to guess the result of complex equations.
They receive new bitcoins in exchange, a very energy-intensive process called “mining” which has until now been concentrated in China.
But after several announcements in recent years against cryptocurrencies, as this decentralized and difficult-to-control technology for a state worries Beijing, which is also launching its own digital yuan, China finally banned mining activity altogether in June.
Bitcoin miners consume the equivalent of 0.45% of global electricity production, estimates the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI), more than a country like the Philippines.
“The direct consequence of the Chinese government’s action has been a worldwide drop of 38%” in the participation of miners in the bitcoin network, notes Mr. Rauchs.
“This is roughly China’s share before the government measures, which suggests that the miners have indeed ceased operations, all at the same time,” he adds.
Since then, the network has resumed such intense activity, and even exceeded it, he concludes.
A significant portion of the miners have relocated to the United States, where they are looking for inexpensive sources of energy, and where lawmakers are divided on the still emerging subject of cryptocurrency.
The president of the regulator of the markets (SEC) Gary Gensler thus qualified the sector of “Wild West” on several occasions, even if he admitted at the end of September that he did not have the power to prohibit their use without the support from parliamentarians.
Conversely, some elected officials, especially on the side of the Republican opposition, are encouraging this new source of income with impressive growth.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, guest of a bitcoin conference, on Friday urged miners to move to his state to take advantage of locally produced gas and wind power that is partly wasted for lack of demand.
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