China BTC miners shut down hashrate amid CCP scrutiny

BTC miners in the Xinjiang autonomous region of China have shut down a significant part of their hashing power. The miners diminished their operations amid renewed scrutiny from the CCP. 

The BTC hashrate fell significantly since December 13, reflecting a partial shutdown in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

The miners are closing as many as 400,000 BTC mining rigs, causing the sharpest downturn in BTC mining since the 2024 halving. As much as 100 EH/s went offline, causing a general drop in BTC hashrate of 5.6%. 

Jack Kong, former chairman of Canaan Mining, confirmed the data, estimating as much as 250 Th/s in facilities went offline. 

算力较昨天掉了100E，跌了8%，按照平均250T，至少关了40万台 机器关了 https://t.co/cCg1F0DXOF

— Jack孔@Nano Labs(NA)🇭🇰 (@punk8185) December 15, 2025

According to Kevin Zhang from Nakamoto Holdings and a former VP at the Foundry mining pool, the losses of operations are even bigger. Zhang estimates the shutdowns based on S19 Antminer machines. According to Zhang, 500,000 BTC mining rigs have been displaced from facilities with 2 GW of energy. 

Chinese shutdown cut overall BTC mining rate

The shutdown arrives after a period of problem-free mining in China, when local pools and mining hubs emerged as global leaders. At one point, China carried over 14% of BTC hashrate. 

China still carries 1,362 BTC nodes, around 2.5% of the entire network. The BTC hashrate continued to slide for a day, just as reports landed of mining farms shutting down one after the other. 

BTC miners recently achieved a record of as much as 1.2Zh/s, followed by a dip to 869 EH/s. The shutdown happens at a time when miners are producing blocks with a potential loss, based on the hash ribbon indicator.  

China BTC miners face local CCP investigations

The Chinese government announced a mining ban in 2021, but some regions retained their mining power. In late November 2025, China was the third-biggest source of hashrate, despite the official ban from 2021. 

However, renewed threats against operations are causing miners to liquidate even relatively new hydroelectric mining farms. 

According to sources cited by Blockspace, some of the newer units use S19 XP mining rigs, some of the fastest mining machines. 

The increased oversight arrived after a CCP investigation into mining operators promoting their mining sites on social media, including TikTok and Rednote. 

The exclusion of some of China’s miners may help other pools, further bringing down difficulty. However, the loss of trust in mining operations may hurt the reputation of the crypto sector. Over the years, the Chinese government has come out with statements in support of mining, so the current shutdown shock was unexpected. 

The mining operation shutdown coincided with another downturn for BTC. The leading coin dipped below $85,000 based on general market panic. Overall, mining does not affect BTC, which is still driven by derivative trading speculation mixed with spot trading. 

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