Ever since China decided to scuttle its own Bitcoin mining industry, miners around the rest of the world have been celebrating, as the drop has made it easier for them to mine precious BTC. This is especially true in North America, where mining farms are springing up like mushrooms. And these companies are also more of a HODL type of company, firmly holding on to their bitcoins.
Over 10,000 BTC mined by North American miners
It was a great stupor followed by a great migration that characterized the early summer of 2021, after China carried out (for real this time) its threats to ban crypto mining.
Other miners across the planet have consequently seen a rapid decline in the difficulty of mining as devices formerly in China relocate and are relocated elsewhere.
As a report from The Block shows, the 6 largest North American mining companies – Riot, Marathon, Bitfarm, Hut8, Argo and Bit Digital – have mined no less than 10,500 BTC since the beginning of 2021, a total of not far from $500 million at the time of writing.
In fact, as seen below, only Bit Digital has experienced a decrease in bitcoin production – the bars on the left being the 1st and 2nd quarters (3 months) while the bars on the right each represent a single month (July and August). It must be said that Bit Digital had much of its production in China, and the company had to rush over 14,500 machines to North America
A war chest of $830 million in bitcoins
Also according to The Block’s data, these Western miners do not seem to want to part with their bitcoins easily.
Indeed, we can see that since the beginning of the year, these companies have greatly expanded their stock of BTC, until accumulating an estimated total of 18,000 BTC in their treasury, or about $830 million.
Marathon Group is the richest in bitcoin, as it now owns 6,995 units of the king of cryptocurrencies alone, but it also has the most impressive growth, as the group held only 126 BTC at the end of 2020.
These 6 companies together account for 5% of the total revenue generated by bitcoin miners since the beginning of 2021.
This unexpected avalanche of bitcoins, an immediate result of the forced abandonment of mining in China, seems to have led to a phase of BTC accumulation by miners outside China. It should be noted, however, that with BTC prices having already recovered well from the low point of July 20 (when BTC briefly fell below $30,000), some miners have recently begun to take their profits by reselling some of their production. For now, however, the ratio between production and sales is tending to balance out, perhaps in large part due to the very strong HODL of North American miners.
