Just out of the water, baskets of hairy crabs were loaded on a plane in Maryland, the United States, and shipped to Shenzhen, China. They are an unwelcome "invasive creature" in the US, but they are a hugely popular ingredient in China.
When the plane arrived in Shenzhen, they were quickly unloaded, refrigerated, and transported to high-end restaurants. The cabin's water stains and fishy smell have not yet dissipated, and hundreds of Bitcoin mining machines, which were properly packaged, were loaded onto the plane. Contrary to the hairy crabs, these mining machines are no longer permitted in China, but are the most desired production tools for the current American cryptocurrency gold diggers.
The scene is one of the "Big Migration of Bitcoin Computing Power."
On May 21 this year, as the State Council Financial Conference released a signal to "crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading," local governments in China began to shut down mining farms and banned mining, and going overseas became the choice of many people.
This great migration came urgently and expensively.
Some miners choose high-cost air freight instead of shipping, which is more common and cheaper when shipping electronic products in the past, to ship out mining machines faster.
Mining machine dealer Luke (pseudonym) told LatePost that the quotation for the professional mining machine charter service he used was as high as 60 yuan per kilogram, sometimes as high as 120 yuan, which is twice the current average price of air freight and the average price of sea freight. about twenty times. Take a Bitmain "Ant S19" mining machine with a bare metal weight of 14 kilograms as an example, the shipping fee for a single machine is close to 800 yuan.
Rooker called the price "extremely exaggerated," but he still flew thousands of bitcoin mining rigs to North and South America between July and August to meet urgent customer demand.
Behind the eager desire to go to sea is excess interest.
The production cost of one bitcoin, calculated at the electricity price of 40 cents, is now stable at around $10,000. Since December last year, the price of Bitcoin has not dropped below $20,000, and the average price in the past six months has exceeded $30,000.
The change in Chinese policy has also sent miners in other parts of the world an extra package.
This is because Bitcoin mining is actually using machines to "compete to solve problems", and the participants who are the first to give the correct answer and get verified by others will receive the corresponding amount of Bitcoin automatically rewarded by the network [1]. The more miners with more mining machines and the greater the total computing power, the more likely the miners will be the first to answer correctly. The difficulty of answering the question is related to the computing power of the entire network: the more machines that mine, the more difficult it is to answer the question, and the higher the computing power and electricity—the main cost of mining—is consumed.
Since China began to regulate bitcoin mining in May 2021, at most 50% of the computing power has withdrawn from the mining network. This means that the same number of bitcoins are still being produced every day, but only half as many miners are sharing them.
A miner said that the current mining machine, as long as it can be turned on, is a "real money printing machine". This expectation of making money is also attracting a large number of new overseas players to join mining.
This is because Bitcoin mining uses machines to "compete to solve problems", and the participants who are the first to give the correct answer and get verified by others will receive the corresponding amount of Bitcoin automatically rewarded by the network [1]. The more miners with more mining machines and the greater the total computing power, the more likely the miners will be the first to answer correctly. The difficulty of answering the question is related to the computing power of the entire network: the more machines that mine, the more difficult it is to answer the question, and the higher the computing power and electricity—the main cost of mining—is consumed.
Since China began to regulate bitcoin mining in May 2021, at most 50% of the computing power has withdrawn from the mining network. This means that the same number of bitcoins are still being produced daily, but only half as many miners share them.
Among Luke's customers is a factory owner in Maryland, USA. After seeing China's mining ban, he immediately realized that this was an opportunity to mine in the United States, and bought hundreds of Bitmain's latest mining machines from Luke at one time.
"This is a once-in-a-decade major change in the industry." Another Chinese who used to be a cross-border e-commerce business in Southeast Asia also recently joined the mining industry. Electricity prices in Southeast Asia are too high, and he plans to go to Pakistan to see opportunities.
Everyone tries to race against the clock. Because the moment you land early, you can earn more excess returns before the computing power recovers and help yourself reach a better position in the new global mining landscape.
The ongoing Bitcoin mining migration, or a new reshuffle in the distribution of global computing power, shows the uniqueness of the cryptocurrency industry from previous commercial activities: due to the high degree of globalization and decentralization, it is difficult for the entire network to be completely controlled. It may also bring new opportunities.
An overseas computing service provider commented on the current situation: "National policies have created a blue ocean."
