China Still Mines Bitcoin

In 2021, China introduced a strict ban on cryptocurrency mining and trading. The government justified the decision as an effort to fight financial crime and protect the country’s economy from the risks of unregulated digital assets. The ban was meant to end the dominance of massive Chinese mining farms that once led the global crypto industry.

However, recent data shows that Bitcoin mining in China never completely disappeared. Despite years of restrictions, by 2025 the country has quietly regained its position among the world’s leading Bitcoin mining hubs.

According to Luxor’s Global Hashrate Map for Q4 2025, China now accounts for 14.05% of Bitcoin’s total computational power — roughly 145 exahashes per second (EH/s). That’s a slight increase from the previous quarter’s 13.8%.

This makes China the third-largest Bitcoin mining center in the world, just behind the United States and Russia.

Industry experts believe much of this underground activity is happening in the Xinjiang region, which has long been attractive to miners thanks to its cheap and abundant energy supply. Sources within the ASIC hardware supply chain suggest that many Chinese miners have quietly resumed operations there, staying under the radar to avoid government scrutiny.

Although the government in Beijing still officially bans crypto mining, the reality is that Chinese miners continue to play a key role in maintaining the global Bitcoin network — this time, more quietly than ever before.