The United States accounted for over 40% of the Bitcoin network’s global hashrate — the total computing power securing the Bitcoin (BTC) protocol — at the close of 2024, with two US-based mining pools, Foundry USA and MARA Pool, accounting for over 38.5% of all blocks mined.
According to TheMinerMag, Foundry USA grew its hashrate from 157 exahashes per second (EH/s) at the start of 2024 to roughly 280 EH/s by December.
Foundry is currently the single biggest mining pool by hashrate, controlling roughly 36.5% of the total hashrate in the Bitcoin network.
Data from the Hashrate Index shows MARA Pool currently commands approximately 32 EH/s, or 4.35% of the total hash power. Despite the increases in computing power, China-based mining pools still control the majority of global hashrate.
Market share of hash power by mining pool. Source: TheMinerMag
Hashrate dominance draws debate
In September, CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju noted that Chinese mining pools controlled 55% of the global hashrate, despite a 2021 ban on crypto.
Chinese miners can circumvent the ban by using virtual private networks (VPNs), which mask their IP addresses, to connect to mining pools.
Additionally, peer-to-peer apps also allow Chinese residents to bypass the national firewall and exchange cryptocurrencies.
The geographic distribution of miners — particularly small miners participating in mining pools — also makes it difficult to estimate true hashrate dominance.
Mining pools may have headquarters in one country but may rely on computing power contributed by miners outside of that particular jurisdiction, TheMinerMag wrote in a September 2024 article.
Estimated breakdown of hash power by country over the last 30 days. Source: Hashrate Index
Concerns arise over hashrate centralization
The concentration of computing power into a small set of mining pools has raised alarm among industry executives.
In October, Rajiv Khemani, co-founder and CEO of mining chip manufacturer Auradine, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin decentralization was a matter of national security.
The Auradine CEO warned that critical mining infrastructure such as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) should not be manufactured within only one jurisdiction to avoid supply chain risks.
Khemani added that no country should control a majority of the Bitcoin network’s hashrate to keep the decentralized currency as neutral as possible.
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