Bitcoin Forum

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This is the first time I have seen blockchain.info showing separate stats for BW.COM at their mining stats page.

https://blockchain.info/pools

The top four miners (percentage of recent block wins / hashing power):

AntPool:           20%
F2Pool:            16%
BW.COM:         11%
BTCChina Pool:  7%

Total China:    54%

(Sort of reminds when GHash.IO briefly took 51% of mining)

this is pretty alarming

Well China will reach superiority soon anyways, what did you expect?
You can't blame them, blame us. The same thing happened when ghash.io reached 51%. We should be setting up miners everywhere and properly distribute the hashrate even if it means that our profits will be slightly reduced.

I thought bitcoin was banned in China? World 51% Attack :(

not really..

after all. for atleast a year, maybe even 3+ years america was dominating the mining..

A you surprised? Just check the electricity price and labour cost plus miners are manufactured there too.....

I also thought this. But apparently not this one.

The electricity prices are low, but comparable to some other countries like Canada or India. Cheap labour might be the deciding factor here. It's nice to see they weren't deterred by tanking BTC prices in the recent months and kept their mines running.

Bitcoin was banned 'officially' in China as it was in Russia. That means that it is not banned at all. People have still free access to it as you can see. You can't ban every pc or other device with internet connection after all.

They also have the biggest trade volume.

Kind of curious if Chinese will manage to keep majority of coins they mine, or all the product ends up shipped overseas figuratively speaking...

i cant see how this can be new to you , prices are cheaper down in china , and not as many belivers in us i guess (most of btc's volume is from china aswell but you guys prolly already know that )
why is this alarming to you guys is my question?

china was going to leave other parts of the world behind from the moment they entered bitcoin.
the ban in china didn't and won't do anything about that. we just have to accept it.
chances are there that it might reach a stunning 75% of the network.

Thoughts on the N Carolina acquisition from Charles Allen & BTCShop shareholders?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0ocO9okqccU#t=227 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0ocO9okqccU#t=227)

Other mega mines will surely proliferate/correlate with electrically efficient geographic locations as BTC transaction volume increases (3-15Yrs)

It is not hard to believe that China mines so much of the coins since they produce most of the miners. I would imagine that the cost savings on shipping alone makes a huge difference.

Indeed china is mining a lot more than US now due to rules regulation and their BS so more stopped due to this along with the ever growing costs of energy prices over their. China is where a lot of equipment is being made and sourced privately from big corporate investors and will continue to grow in number no doubt will go to 60% or even more of the mining.

Is there any evidence, actual evidence, that chinese miners tend to collude?

That is bad news , them getting so much of hashrate :-\

i think it was time that china became the biggest miner in the world, the electricity price alone ensures that. besides the labor cost is low there so it is all profitable

I am not surprised by this at all. They have cheap electricity ...moderate to cold temperatures... diciplined workforce and possibly cheaper too.

Just look at the Chinese mining operations in Africa. {They go in there, extract the raw minerals, export it back to China and refine them there... the country where they mined the raw minerals, are stripped bare and a few roads are build to compensate for their loss... the rest of the compensation, goes to some elite individuals with political connections and the rest of the country stay poor.

I have watched a documentary on youtube {will look for it} where they state that most big companies in the USA are owned or in debt to the Chinese ...in affect these companies are mere puppets controlled by mayor Chinese shareholders.

Gavin said that there are counter measures in place to prevent 51% attacks... so I am not really worried about that.  ;)

They are not much organized. So there is nothing to fear. But I am sure that a lot of mining operations will cease to exist if the exchange rate doesn't go above $400 in the next few months.

Some areas where these "mega" farms are have power as cheap as 2 cents. Bitcoin can drop in price under $200 and they still make a profit. Unfortunately the USA for the most part has more expensive power + the added shipping costs of the miners from China.

Centralized decentralization.  If they teamed up that entity would control the present and future of bitcoin; I don't like it.

Not really good news! But they also have the biggest trade volume...

Is there mining hardware produce from china ?

Not surprising though. Seeing that their location is ideal for a mining business, it is not anymore surprising that most of the farms are located in China. Low electricity costs, cheap manpower services, and cool climate (perfectly ideal for your miner's cooling needs) they will still make a profit even if the price of btc drops.

The only theoretical problem could be if Chinese government took control over all the Bitcoin mining farms in China and 51% attacked Bitcoin.

But I can understand why these Bitcoin mining farms are located there - cheap electricity, labour and no vat on hardware

I am quite sure the Chinese do not own 54% of global hashing power. They are pools and they are dominating because miners point their hashing power to those pools.

Pools come and go. Most only dominate for a few months and then slowly fades away. Look at where BTCGuild and GHash are now. How about ASICMiner?  :D

http://www.blockmeta.com/miner/TangPool

Tangpool is in China and takes up 2.29% of the hashrate.

Well it used to be UNITED STATES mining more than 50%, which was extremely alarming. You know, with America being anti-freedom and anti-privacy and pro-banks and pro-dollars and pro-FED and everything.

So it's a good thing this is balancing out, especially considering there more than 4 times less Americans than Chinese.

I'd be more comfortable if no single county dominated the hashing power of the network.

How to raise the interest in something to the next level? make it ilegal and bang you go it.

I think everyone is panicing over nothing. Do you guys really think any other country could compete in terms of mining power in the current economic climate? Absolutely everything is cheaper in China.

There's not much they can do with it other than sell it. There's nothing approaching actual merchant use there. That was squished pretty rapidly when it looked like it might be brewing.

Are you saying the China Government is mining or that people from China are mining?

I wouldn't  link miners in China to the Chinese Government...if they're in the BTC community they are most assuredly with us, no? Unless of course you can confirm it's a Chinese government operation.

Yeah, where were the alarm bells when virtually 100% of the hash power was in the US?
And a conspiracy among Chinese miners to launch a 51% attack is not logical as it would hurt their businesses as much as anyone.  

this is slightly inaccurate.  lots of US miners on f2pool for instance.

http://www.icecreamnation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/inuit-hunter-igloo.jpg

he should start a mining farm  :P

The biggest btc mine in the world is right here
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=969823.0

You should see the massive massive mining infrastructure and get a feeling what it likes.

It's not "china" as in "China's government", it's "a bunch of random folks who happen to live in the nation where one third of all humans live". Nothing to be alarmed about.

Well, as a Chinese, I haven't seen Bitcoin mining is getting so hot as it takes 54% of production.

It's wired, what I hear and see is people are dropping out Bitcoin for the dropping price.

Some independent players obviously not part of the Chinese Government. Yes, if they're into btc, they wouldn't make some regulations against bitcoin if they're indeed into bitcoin.

It doesn't alarm me and I don't really think it should be too surprising either.  People make a lot of the fact that some Chinese exchanges have no trading fees, so that in thei ropinion means that the volume is fake.  Nothing has proven this hypothesis though.  China is about 2/7ths of the world populationwise, but they are an increasing power that is tech savvy.  I don't know about the prices of electricity there, so can't comment, but I do know that they are pretty good at producing electricals, so can probably pump out a large number of ASICs at a reasonable price to start these farms.

It doesn't really remind me of the GHash.IO story, because they actually had control of more than 51% of the mining, so could have double spent if they had so chosen.  Here the biggest pool is 20%, which is a good thing for securing the bloch chain from future 51% attacks.

China seems very big on any kind of external investment nowadays, they are buying up property, prescious metals and apparently are now dominating Bitcoin mining too.

Just because they happen to reside in the same arbitrary borders, doesn't mean they're some sort of hive-mind colluding to take over.  Stop jumping at shadows.  Also slightly disgusted with the double standard that no one cared when it was any other country with the largest hash rate (since there's obviously always going to be one with a higher hash rate than the others), but now just because it's China we should sound the alarm?  Are you trying to come across as racists or something?

And don't forget that China is one (if not the) leading countries in terms of economic growth. Based on what I've read, electricity costs and manpower services in China is way cheaper compared to Western countries. With that said, one can easily establish a mining farm and start hashing with lower risks of losing money in the end.

Correct. It would definitely backfire to them in case a 51% attack happened.

Not sure if being racist or not, but why are we alarmed when the Chinese gets their name on the headlines?

Chinese pool ≠ Chinese miners
There are many other countries people who connect their miners to these pools to mine.

No one is being racist here, we are just speculating. China has been playing a major role in the bitcoin price development with their massive adoption, mining and dumping of coins. They can really change the price.

I've been guilty of this thing haha. I've connected my miners to a Chinese pool back in the days because I thought their "luck" percentage is way higher compared to those of the Western pools. Well I didn't have enough knowledge back then and I did that because of overthinking of profits.  ;D

The mining farm is strategically placed too. It is placed on the highlands where the temperature is cooler that helps the miners in terms of cooling. Electricity costs are also cut down because of the "natural cooling system" the miners have in that place.

The Chinese could have just ignored Bitcoin instead of trying to become the worlds Bitcoin miner. Ignoring it would be much worse. They deserve the rewards because they're a hard working studious people. Westerners think they can sit on their ass, eat hamburgers and get fat while the world pours riches at their feet. The Chinese are working for it. Good for them.

Yeah total zero for cooling expenses.Also if am not mistaken tangpool is also based in china.Or it is not? If not than where is it?

Zero surprise there, as most of tech and profit harvesting industry is there, giving others small chances of making positive returns.
They are mostly not interested in bitcoin itself, but only on profit they can make mining it, but doing so it happened that they spread some awareness about bitcoin on their comunity
that quickly produced exchanges and other bitcoin related industry that makes them even more profit.

cheers

There are still a percentage of people preferring a pool based in China than one outside of it.

Since IP address are not revealed to the public, we don't know how many percent of the miners in the pool are based in China. Blockchain.info's hashrate chart isn't the accurate.They base it on the average of a timeframe specified and calculate according to the amount of blocks found. If the biggest pool experience a very bad luck, it is possible that the hashrate share would be lower. There are plenty of cheap warehouses and electricity in China too. With alot of ASIC manufacturer based in China, they can buy it in bulk without experiencing huge shipping delays.

I don't know if anybody else has made this point yet, but Bitcoin has not been banned as such in China. 

What they have done is banned banks, exchanges, and money transmitters from dealing in it.  But if individuals use it to pay for things, or accept it as payment, or use state-sponsored electricity to run hashing farms, that's still okay under their laws.

Not really.  Connectivity really sucks up there.  It costs huge money to get good Internet and electrical service installed once you go north of the Arctic Circle. 

Seriously?  If that's the case, they're headed for a major crash, and not too far in the future.  That kind of thing only happens in a major bubble, or in the presence of incredibly stupid monetary policy.  That's a sign as strong as no-income, no-assets, zero-down-payment low interest loans in the US mortgage market was.  

I don't think the government cant do much beyond what has been already done, china bitcoin is already marked as regulated.

the other 46% maybe?

It is not said that China is the only player.

But maybe the biggest because their costs are smaller

For now it is not the problem I agree but China will reign supreme in a couple of years. That is certain - then it probably would become a problem when they will be able to influence bitcoin world.

Interesting, after the relaying of message of this thread.
http://www.8btc.com/54-percent-hashrate

Check out the Chinese comment to this thread!

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There are currently FOUR major groups mining BTC in China.  At least for the moment, it is hard to see Bitmain/AntMiner (say) cooperate with the other three.  The other are competitors, each of whom have Alpha-Men (Alpha-Women too perhaps) leading them, likely lessening a cooperation between them to misuse any mining concentration between them.

And should the .gov of the PRC decide these guys are a problem, well, they will be suppressed.

Should the .gov see them as a further tool for increasing their world power in general, I think we would have time to notice that.  And act..., buying gold or other products and liquidating our BTC hoards.

*   *   *

Now if Intel or Toshiba or Samsung would start making ASIC chips (and machines), well, maybe setting up more shops in Iceland, Washington State, etc. might yield big, non-Chinese BTC mines.

I am not surprised that this is true .
But doesn't it create a vast imbalance of Bitcoins in the world due to this ?

HA. China keep the bitcoin? Absolutely not a chance in hell. These same people setting up these huge mining rigs in China are the same people who pay people there $2 a day to mine gold in online games for 12hrs a day. What do they do with this gold? Sell it for USD. What do they do with bitcoin? Sell it for USD.

What else do they do? They scam and hack accounts in online games ALL THE TIME to steal valuable items and sell them off. Believe me if they could conjure a plan to steal your bitcoins, you won't have them anymore. If they had the capacity to work together to build a >51% mining network, they will be double spending faster than you can question it.

I dont believe it would affect the imbalance of the amount of Bitcoin in the world. Most people withdraw it after mining and they may be from other parts of the world. The imbalance of Bitcoins would not affect anything IMO as Bitcoin can be used anywhere with internet.

They have some financial product, which pays huge interests in Chinese Xchanges.

They caused the btc crash from 600 USD to 150USD because they need to dump those coins to get more coins, therefore they have money to pay the high interests. It's harmful to btc.

Does antpool operate in China as well? I never knew that.

Wow, so was the price drop caused by the Chinese miners dumping their coins?

Yes that is possible. China make cheap parts, so no wonder. They can make a miner in a 1/4 of price and use it with gain.

Bitmain is based in China so their pool are also based in China.

Perhaps, but since they aren't private and solo pool, you shouldn't assume they are all from China. The dump can happen for a variety of reasons. Many Chinese miners sells a portion of the coins and hold the rest. (judging by what the biggest mining farm's owner said)

I am not surprise that China has the most mining as the price of bitcoin explosion in the end of 2013 because of Chinese people.

use P2Pool.

Simple.

I Am 100% that  China Will Control Take More than 80% of BTC Mining Before 2020.

Well... Everything will be made in China soon(Actually it is right now), so why not add bitcoins to the list? :P

Actually it is quite surprising since Bitcoin in China is not really welcome by the authorities. I guess they are mining under cover of other IT projects and while doing so they managed to beat everyone.

They will do what ever it takes to get any USD they can.

Quite big, maybe some 1 person is owning all those pools and is planning a 51% percent attack. Or maybe its the government performing a 51% attack ruining bitcoin so that it doesn't compete with the scam banks. Lots of theories can attempt to explain this, but maybe they just happen to own 54% and will not do a 51% attack.

To the OP, what's your take on these stats? Is this alarming? Is it expected? Why should we care that folks in China make up 54% of BTC mining today?

So what ? Not like there was only 1 miner is China.

This is true but it will probably happen sooner than later, have not been around for awhile is there a ban still in china?

Yes, but I doubt mining operations will be banned though. Bitcoin is banned, not the mining operations.

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Possum577

China is a big place with a lot of moving parts.  It is not monolithic.  So, no, I am not really alarmed, the point of my OP was just to show where the mining action is now.  

I was a little concerned when GHash.IO hit that 51% number a year or so ago, but you need would AT LEAST three of the four Chinese mining pools acting in concert to "51%" the BTC system, which strikes me as unlikely.  One reason (and it's not worth much, granted) is that there are so many bearing producers & exporters in China that are cutting each others' throats...  Same with vehicles (there are some 90 vehicle manufacturers there, many of them in Peru (over 20 that I myself have seen when there).  My prediction is that blood will run among the Chinese truck makers...

Nonetheless, I would be perfectly happy to see some Westerners belly-up and start serious BTC mining.  I have read about BTC mines in Sweden and (especially) Iceland that take advantage of low electricity rates and cold air for cooling.  Or Alaska!

Bitcoin is restricted. Transactions can still be made with Bitcoin between people but banks are not allowed to handle transactions associated with Bitcoin.

How can a bank prove a transaction is bitcoin associated lol. If I sold bitcoins on Localbitcoins, for example, and someone did a cash deposit the bank cannot find out what the transaction was for? On what premise can they conclude it was related to bitcoin. Bitcoins(just like WoW gold etc) are useless to the Chinese, the USD is all they care about.

Basically, most exchanges uses a static bank account. The bank can know that the bank account is used for Bitcoin trading if they check it via the website. It isn't difficult to bind an account to a Bitcoin transaction.

There are likely more people getting rich in China than in all the rest of the world combined.

The US government does not quite have as negative view on bitcoin as the Chinese government does. There is also a lot more corruption throughout the Chinese government, and overall less rule of law when it comes to private property. This means that it would be more conceivable for the chinese government to seize chinese miners and use them to attack the network

Not strictly true, india has started booming recently and is well on the way to become the number 2 superpower but yes both china and india are gaining so much wealth between them they have became the new what was the American dream.

I am not surprised china has that much of the mining under control for the obvious reason a lot is made in china and i suspect that involves mining equipment to? 

China is economics with many possibilities which you can`t use in another countries. China has fast development, they jump into business fast and they are producing miners. It was just question of time when companies like Bitmain start to build strong pools of it`s own. It will be even more I think.

Antminer raised S5 price by 20% while LKetc cut price from 1.85m/Phash to 1.5m/Phash
More on:
http://8btc.com/thread-14829-1-1.html

 :D

Ha, here comes the hot shot. What's next move for Avalon?