Bitcoin Mining in China Grows Tenfold Since 2021 Ban

• Despite a national ban, China now accounts for 14% of global Bitcoin mining, driven by cheap electricity.
• Mining hardware sales in China surged, with Canaan reporting up to 50% of Q2 2025 revenue from local buyers.
• Rising Bitcoin prices and lax enforcement hint at a possible policy shift, as BTC trades near $86,100 after a recent decline.

Despite being banned in the country, Bitcoin mining is emerging in China once again. At the end of October, Chinese miners took up 14% of the global mining share, Reuters reported, citing data from Hashrate Index. Four years ago, China’s government banned both cryptocurrency mining and trading, stating that the practice is a threat to the country’s financial stability, as well as its efforts at energy conservation.

However, China seems to be quite lax at enforcing this ban, which the locals are seeing as a subtle hint to get back into the game. As a result, they’re increasingly buying new gear and setting up new mining facilities.

Related: U.S. Bitcoin Sentiment Weakens as The Market Undergoes A Correction

China’s changing stance towards Bitcoin mining

The data shared by Hashrate Index is backed by information about increasing sales of Bitcoin mining hardware. Canaan, one of the world’s biggest mining gear manufacturers, made 30.3% of its global revenues in China last year. Three years ago, when the ban was first put in place, it made 2.8% – more than a tenfold increase. 

In the second quarter of 2025, Canaan made even more from Chinese buyers – roughly 50%. However, this information was shared anonymously and is yet to be confirmed by the hardware maker.

The company did say that there’s been a “subtle shift” in China’s stance towards digital assets, hinting that this could be, at least in part, due to US tariff uncertainty that disrupted US sales, along with rising Bitcoin prices. All of these elements made mining the asset attractive again. 

“A lot of energy cannot be transmitted out of Xinjiang, so you consume it in the form of crypto mining,” one miner told Reuters. “New mining projects are under construction. What I can say is that people mine where electricity is cheap.”

If indeed China is preparing to lift the ban on mining, it could be the catalyst Bitcoin needs to rally, after a 30% drawdown in recent weeks. The most popular cryptocurrency has been in decline since early October, when it hit its all-time high of approximately $125,000. At the time of writing, it’s trading at roughly $86,100.

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