No..China Does NOT Have 0% of the Hashrate

[titular]

If you recall back months ago, news outlets were touting headlines regarding China having a 0% share of the global hashrate.

https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2021/10/18/bitcoin-mining-china-hashrate/
https://maxbit.cc/bitcoin-mining-china-now-has-0-hashrate/
https://coindesk.cc/bitcoin-mining-china-now-has-0-hashrate-50346.html

Even the University of Cambridge's Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index shows that China is not mining anything.

https://ccaf.io/cbeci/mining_map

When I had first heard this news I was quite skeptical. I just couldn't believe that there was nobody mining bitcoin within China's borders.

Data from a Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 estimates an average of 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active daily in China. This is a whole lot more than zero. The miners that remain, though, are smaller-scale projects that did not find it feasible to just pick up and leave. They did not have the luxury of packing up on a helicopter and shipping their operation to Kazakhstan as did many of the larger-scale miners did.

The same cybersecurity company also stated that as much as 20% of the world’s bitcoin miners are estimated to still operate within China. The provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Shandong are where the majority of these miners reside. Or at least that's where the connections are being made from. I struggle to imagine the amount of hoops such operators would have to jump through to ensure a safe operation.

The report states that many of the miners are able to take advantage of their small size and spread out their operation across multiple sites to ensure none of them stand out from the others. They are also using electricity sources not connected to the country's grid such as dams. Furthermore, miners have to work with foreign mining pools willing to sign them up despite the ban.

This goes to show you there is absolutely nothing anyone/anything can do to keep people from participating in our decentralized network.

Sources:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/E3MzWQ-XT55wIC7S8FYD7w
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/18/chinas-underground-bitcoin-miners-.html

[hd49728]

If you recall back months ago, news outlets were touting headlines regarding China having a 0% share of the global hashrate.

In fact there are still hashrates in China but we can identify exactly what the total hashrate from China is.

CBECI writes clearly about their methodology to collect data with 3 big assumptions. https://ccaf.io/cbeci/mining_map/methodology

Many assumptions mean data you got can be inaccurate. Chinese miners can simply keep mining in small mining farms, at home and switch their IPs to other nations, connect to other mining pools, etc. We can not determine how many miners like that.

I don't have data for it too but I don't believe total hashrate from China is absolutely zero.

[NeuroticFish]

Back then, when these numbers first came out, I've told that the IPs can be spoofed and the "others" can be anything (and it's big).
That "Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index" has so much potential for being inaccurate it practically misleads everybody.

So indeed, I never believed China's hash rate dropped to 0.


On the other hand, it does show that the bulk of miners have moved or hide their tracks, hence there's no official mining in China, hence their political declarations should have low impact in bitcoin's price and evolution (unless they're unban it again, of course).

There are a lot of opinions in the other topic that may worth reading: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5365501.0

[SFR10]

This goes to show you there is absolutely nothing anyone/anything can do to keep people from participating in our decentralized network.

You have a point, but eventually, it'll get close to the number shown in the subject field ^{[if everything remains the same, it's inevitable]}... FYI, I'm not referring to issues concerning "dry season", instead I'm talking about the huge risk that it has when it comes to not getting caught ^{[on the last article, Ben mentioned he got lucky once before... In other words, all it takes to stop such operations is a single unexpected visit, as opposed to a phone call]}.

[Poker Player]

So, how come Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 can guess there are 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active and the Chinese government, authoritarian as it is, does nothing?

I understand that most will be trying to camouflage via vpn or Tor but if that company can do that estimate I find it hard to believe that the Chinese government can't do the same and act accordingly.

[DapanasFruit]

Of course, this is quite possible and what is happening right now with some remaining miners still operating within China. These small-scale miners have the ways and means to evade the detection of the government and yes they are so willing to play hide and seek with the strict and control-freak government of China. Not unless China will decide to station a police in every family or household, nothing can really stop these miners from continually doing a profitable Bitcoin mining away from the prying eyes of their own government which already said a big NO to crypto mining months ago.

[wilkine]

An average of 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active daily in China? This is quite an astonishing number. How do they survive, I mean, to protect themselves from official inspection?
I thought China has left for good.

[pooya87]

Even the University of Cambridge's Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index shows that China is not mining anything.

I already called bullshit on the numbers produced by these guys at Cambridge a couple of months ago. Interestingly enough some people didn't want to have an open mind and realize that most of the statistics reported about bitcoin has always been largely flawed.
Similarly the 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses could also be challenged. But one thing is certain, there is still some small but considerable amount of hashrate coming from China.

So, how come Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 can guess there are 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active and the Chinese government, authoritarian as it is, does nothing?

Possibly because Chinese government is not this big evil dictatorship as it is portrayed. It is just as evil as other governments in any other country, which means they aren't raiding people's home every day for mining bitcoin. They basically don't care. They just didn't want big mining farms in their country.

[bitbenzhong]

There are no large-scale mining companies because they need stability, but the policy prevents them from mining legally in China, so they are currently small-scale private mining farms.

[NeuroticFish]

So, how come Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 can guess there are 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active and the Chinese government, authoritarian as it is, does nothing?

I understand that most will be trying to camouflage via vpn or Tor but if that company can do that estimate I find it hard to believe that the Chinese government can't do the same and act accordingly.

I expect that some degree of corruption/protectionism does exist and if one has the proper "friends" his business is not harmed, even if it was declared illegal, as long as the business is not too big and doesn't draw too much attention.

Then, as others said, there may be some very small fish here and there which may costs more effort than the "benefit" of bringing them to "justice".

[o_e_l_e_o]

I wouldn't read too much in to this kind of thing. A random security company can find 109,000 of these miners, and CNBC can find a couple to interview, but the Chinese government can't track them down? Please.

What we know: China banned bitcoin for the 9000th time, the hashrate dipped for a few months, and has recovered back to higher levels than previously. It doesn't actually matter if China have 0% or 20% of the hashrate at this point.

What I suspect is going on: China are gearing up to ban bitcoin for the 9001st time, but before that happens, they need to make everyone think that this time it will actually matter. So lets start throwing out some articles about how China still have over 100,000 miners, or the big Chinese whales which are going to sell everything after this ban, or some other such nonsense.

[yazher]

Those numbers show us when the government works, it doesn't always be perfect for there are tendencies such as this one where people still can do what they want despite tight policies by their government and while China is not safe from that, the other countries are also included. Wherever those miners, I truly appreciate their hard works because no matter the government wanted to kick them out, they still find some way to stay.

[DdmrDdmr]

Going over the Google Translation (*) for the first source provided in the OP, it seems that the 360 Enterprise Security Group (that’s what Google translates the company’s name to, although one specific instance even throws "Government" after the 360, but I figure it also should bear an "and"), has a track record of working in anti-mining, amongst other fields. The article goes on to saying:

According to the monitoring data of 360 Threat Situation Monitoring System in November, there are 109,000 active mining host IPs per day. The main network types used are home broadband, corporate dedicated lines, and data centers, mainly in Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. Province, Shandong Province and other places.

The information is not just aggregate assessment information, but rather more, bears an operational intent:

In the face of undefeatable mining Trojans, the 360 threat situation monitoring system has formed a "test + cure" protection loop. On the one hand, it helps supervising users to understand the "mining" situation of the jurisdiction by conducting statistical monitoring of the macro situation based on geographic regions (provinces/cities/districts), network types (data centers, enterprise dedicated lines) and other dimensions. On the other hand, based on the need for “mining” rectification, the list of mining hosts is directly output. The content of the list includes the IP address, geographic location, network type, connection frequency, disposal suggestions and other information of the mining host involved in the unit, which will assist the regulatory unit to issue Dispose and guide the enterprise organization to respond to the disposal.

There could be some flaws in the translation, but it seems that their realized goal is to create a monitoring system to snitch on potential miners. Accuracy is secondary, I figure, once the list gets into the hands of the Government there …

(*) https://mp-weixin-qq-com.translate.goog/s/E3MzWQ-XT55wIC7S8FYD7w?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

[davis196]

An average of 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active daily in China? This is quite an astonishing number. How do they survive, I mean, to protect themselves from official inspection?
I thought China has left for good.

The Chinese authorities will do something about it,sooner or later.
China has a totalitarian regime,but that doesn't mean that the government is all mighty and can do whatever it wants-like shutting down 109K Bitcoin miners in a week or two.
I guess that tracking and shutting down all those miners will be a slow process.
What do you mean by "China left for good"?I have nothing against the crypto miners located there.
The Chinese miners aren't the ones creating the problems.
The Chinese government was the main cause for FUD.

[dkbit98]

Even the University of Cambridge's Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index shows that China is not mining anything.

I never considered anything Bitcoinrelated coming from University of Cambridge to be reliable even before this.
We know that some big mining pools are from China (Antpool, ViaBTC, Binance pool, etc.) and I doubt they really removed all their asic miners from China.

There could be some flaws in the translation, but it seems that their realized goal is to create a monitoring system to snitch on potential miners. Accuracy is secondary, I figure, once the list gets into the hands of the Government there …

Chinese government is known for their monitoring of every aspect of their citizens, so we can understand why they are probably preparing to open hunting season for anyone mining Bitcoin.
Problem is that I think rest of the world is trying to follow China more and more with this totalitarian control system.

[Lucius]

Data from a Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 estimates an average of 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active daily in China. This is a whole lot more than zero. The miners that remain, though, are smaller-scale projects that did not find it feasible to just pick up and leave. They did not have the luxury of packing up on a helicopter and shipping their operation to Kazakhstan as did many of the larger-scale miners did.

Oh no, does that mean Bitcoin is still a dirty coal-powered industry run by a communist-dictatorial lobby that is destroying the environment for profit? Will Mr.Mars now re-create some of his famous tweets in which he will say again that he will not use Bitcoin because it is not environmentally friendly?

We are doomed, no new ATH and Lambos - let someone tell PlanB that S2F has completely failed

[hatshepsut93]

Data from a Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 estimates an average of 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active daily in China. This is a whole lot more than zero. The miners that remain, though, are smaller-scale projects that did not find it feasible to just pick up and leave. They did not have the luxury of packing up on a helicopter and shipping their operation to Kazakhstan as did many of the larger-scale miners did.

The total number of full nodes is estimated to be around 100k or even less, so either I'm missing something, or there's something wrong with this research.

I don't doubt that China's hashrate is not literally zero, but China probably lost 99% of its hashrate, maybe even more, so I wouldn't say that miners have won. Yes, government can never fully stop Bitcoin, but Bitcoin needs a lot of PoW to secure the current transaction volume, and it will only grow, and we can't get this PoW without large farms that are vulnerable to being shut down by government.

[Fortify]

If you recall back months ago, news outlets were touting headlines regarding China having a 0% share of the global hashrate.

https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2021/10/18/bitcoin-mining-china-hashrate/
https://maxbit.cc/bitcoin-mining-china-now-has-0-hashrate/
https://coindesk.cc/bitcoin-mining-china-now-has-0-hashrate-50346.html

Even the University of Cambridge's Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index shows that China is not mining anything.

https://ccaf.io/cbeci/mining_map

When I had first heard this news I was quite skeptical. I just couldn't believe that there was nobody mining bitcoin within China's borders.

Data from a Chinese cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 estimates an average of 109,000 bitcoin mining IP addresses active daily in China. This is a whole lot more than zero. The miners that remain, though, are smaller-scale projects that did not find it feasible to just pick up and leave. They did not have the luxury of packing up on a helicopter and shipping their operation to Kazakhstan as did many of the larger-scale miners did.

The same cybersecurity company also stated that as much as 20% of the world’s bitcoin miners are estimated to still operate within China. The provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Shandong are where the majority of these miners reside. Or at least that's where the connections are being made from. I struggle to imagine the amount of hoops such operators would have to jump through to ensure a safe operation.

The report states that many of the miners are able to take advantage of their small size and spread out their operation across multiple sites to ensure none of them stand out from the others. They are also using electricity sources not connected to the country's grid such as dams. Furthermore, miners have to work with foreign mining pools willing to sign them up despite the ban.

This goes to show you there is absolutely nothing anyone/anything can do to keep people from participating in our decentralized network.

Sources:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/E3MzWQ-XT55wIC7S8FYD7w
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/18/chinas-underground-bitcoin-miners-.html

I think the more important point is that China has progressively stopped Bitcoin access over time. First it went from "this is profitable to a small part of the Chinese economy and we can keep an eye on it", to "we have energy shortages in other sectors so need to stop this activity" to "Bitcoin might actually be bad for the environment and also give dissidents an ability to evade Chinese government repression". Just like how it is banned in Russia - there will be small scale operations, but it is nowhere near the industrial scale utilizing the entire energy from small power plants to run an operation type mining. The Chinese authorities are pretty good at suppressing internet activity so if they decide to have a crackdown in future then all these small scale miners will be wiped out because it's illegal - there may have been moments in time when the number was much lower as people were scared of the consequences.

[pooya87]

The total number of full nodes is estimated to be around 100k or even less, so either I'm missing something, or there's something wrong with this research.

You don't need to run a full node to mine bitcoin (sadly). Almost all bitcoin miners connect to a mining pool that runs a full node on their behalf. That means 100k individual miners could connect to a single pool that represents 1 node.

and we can't get this PoW without large farms that are vulnerable to being shut down by government.

Luckily the world has almost 200 countries, many of which have already accepted bitcoin with open arms.

[Wind_FURY]

OP, your title can also be, “NO, a Totalitarian Government can’t censor Bitcoin miners”.

Give the people enough incentives, and they will do anything to be incentivized. The Chinese government’s ban merely made it more difficult for themselves.