Bitcoin miners face fresh Chinese crackdowns as Xinjiang shutdown cuts hashrate 8%

China’s renewed Xinjiang crackdown has shut down roughly 400,000 ASICs, cutting Bitcoin hashrate by up to 10% and forcing miners to sell into record-low hashprice.​

Bitcoin mining operations in China’s Xinjiang province have suspended activities following renewed enforcement actions by Beijing this week, according to industry reports.

Bitcoin mining and China

Approximately 400,000 mining machines have gone offline, contributing to a decline in network hashrate, according to analyst Bull Theory on Wednesday. The analyst stated that Bitcoin faces selling pressure from multiple sources, with China’s mining crackdown serving as a major factor.

Network hashrate has decreased by approximately 8%, a significant movement given that China controls roughly 14% of global hash power, according to the analyst’s observations.

Bull Theory reported that Asian holders likely began selling weeks ago in anticipation of renewed restrictions, with on-chain data confirming increased long-term holder selling over the past two months. The analyst noted that closed mining farms have been forced to sell bitcoin reserves and equipment to cover losses.

Asian exchanges including Binance, Bybit, and OKX have shown consistent net spot selling through the fourth quarter, while U.S. exchanges such as Coinbase have demonstrated continued net buying, according to the analyst’s data.

Bitcoin’s hashrate declined 10% from approximately 1,160 exahashes per second in October to about 1,045 EH/s in December, marking three consecutive negative difficulty adjustments, mining pool operator Luxor reported on Wednesday.

Luxor attributed the trend to three factors: declining bitcoin prices pushing legacy hardware into negative profit margins, regional enforcement actions removing capacity from major mining regions, and rising winter energy costs triggering seasonal curtailment across North America.

Hashprice, which measures expected earnings from a specific quantity of hashrate, has reached an all-time low, according to Luxor data.

Bitcoin was trading near the lower bounds of its range-bound channel that formed in late November, having failed to reclaim recent highs.