Chinese Bitcoin Ban Spreads To Giant Ethereum Mining Pool

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Last Updated on 29 September 2021 by CryptoTips.eu

Jeroen Kok

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Last week, China once again banned Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies on its soil. What else is new we hear you ask but this time it’s different they said. Hah.

Faced with these new restrictions, various companies are starting to make arrangements to also shut users from the Chinese mainland to their platforms in order to not entice the ire of Beijing authorities. One of them is a giant Ethereum mining pool.

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Ban on mining

It had been ten days since the rumor began to rise on social networks. It wasn’t until September 24 that the Chinese government formalized the matter with the publication of new guidelines.

China bans all cryptocurrency-related trading activities, according to the document published in the Chinese state media outlets. The same goes for issuing cryptocurrencies or even financing crypto projects. Unsurprisingly, these new guidelines re-emphasize the ban on mining on Chinese soil, following a first ban at the end of last August.

Now, Chinese agencies want to put an end to smaller, harder-to-detect mining activities, saying:

Although the rectification of large-scale centralized mining operations has been effective, cryptocurrency mining activities now have new characteristics, such as the being decentralized, small-scale and well hidden, which increases the difficulty of spotting them precisely.

Sparkpool closes doors to Chinese miners

Following this announcement, many companies have had no choice but to apply restrictive measures vis-à-vis their Chinese customers. Starkpool, one of the main mining pools on Ethereum, announced the shutdown of its service to all miners from China, following government announcements.

Its press release stated:

In accordance with the latest industry regulatory policies in China, Starkpool Mining has decided to no longer provide pooling services to users based in mainland China.

In addition to this, the company said it is “actively cooperating” with the relevant authorities regarding the regulatory measures put in place.

Until now, Sparkpool had been Ethereum’s largest mining pool. However, the move cost them their number one spot in favor of Ethermine, which has seen its hash rate rise 1.3% because of it. Meanwhile Ether is trading at $2,912 and is pretty much unchanged for the week. Looks like China’s influence over crypto is wavering. The fact that Ethereum is migrating to Proof of Stake is helping their decision, we think.