Barred From China, BIT Mining Has Started Moving Bitcoin Mining Operations To Kazakhstan

Following power cuts to its bitcoin mining operations in China, BIT Mining is moving rigs to Kazakhstan.

Bitcoin mining company BIT Mining, owner of the BTC.com mining pool and the corresponding domain name, announced today that it has successfully transferred the first of three batches of bitcoin mining machines from China to Kazakhstan. The company expects to deliver 2,600 mining rigs total to the Central Asian country by July 1, 2021.

“We are committed to protecting the environment and lowering our carbon footprint,” Xianfeng Yang, CEO of BIT Mining, commented in the announcement. “We have been strategically expanding our operations overseas as part of our growth strategy. Following our investments in cryptocurrency mining data centers in Texas and Kazakhstan, we are accelerating our overseas development for alternative high-quality mining resources.”

The first batch of 320 bitcoin mining machines recently delivered to Kazakhstan, capable of around 18.2 peta hashes per second (PH/s), is expected to begin operation in Kazakhstan in under five days. However, BIT Mining’s largest share of hash rate in this transfer will be delivered through the second and third batches. Combined, they will amount to 2,600 machines and have a 102.3 PH/s hash rate capacity.

BIT Mining’s total hash rate capacity is far greater than this total though, with its BTC.com mining pool accounting for 9,741 PH/s –– around 9% of the Bitcoin network’s total hash rate. This move to Kazakhstan is part of the company’s overseas deployment strategy. Over the coming quarters, it plans to ship its remaining mining machines to other data centers outside of China.

BIT mining’s overseas deployment strategy was likely born from the recent bitcoin crackdowns in China. In mid-May, the country’s state council shared a statement saying that the government would “crack down on bitcoin mining and trading behavior and resolutely prevent the transfer of individual risks to the society.”

According to the announcement, the company’s indirectly held subsidiary, Ganzi Changhe Data Center, received a notice from the Sichuan State Grid informing it that the grid would cut its power supply by June 19. This notice hence confirms that Sichuan was reportedly issuing shut down orders to bitcoin miners in the province. BIT Mining’s data centers in Sichuan, including Ganzi Changhe, contributed to around 3% of the company’s total revenues in May 2021, per the announcement.