The United States and Canada Dominate Global Bitcoin Mining

This latest Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance report confirms the United States and Canada dominate global bitcoin mining, collectively controlling over 80% of reported activity.

The latest report from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) has revealed that the United States and Canada are home to the majority of bitcoin mining activity, with the two countries together controlling over 80% of the reported activity.

According to the latest CCAP survey findings, the U.S. is the largest global mining hub, handling 75.4% of reported activity.

Canada followed in a distant second place with 7.1% of the activity, which may indicate that mining companies are largely concentrated in North America.

The survey findings also revealed that 98% of respondents’ power capacity is dedicated to bitcoin mining.

However, the report’s summary does acknowledge possible bias in the findings, and it’s worth noting that the figures may not fully represent the overall activity.

Despite this, the survey findings “reveals directionally relevant developments,” including emerging activity in South America and the Middle East. Until mid-2021, China was widely recognized as the No. 1 bitcoin mining country. However, a crackdown against this activity forced some mining companies to relocate to neighboring countries and, in some cases, to the U.S.

As reported by Bitcoin.com News in 2022, while the crackdown did impact miners’ operations, it did not result in China immediately losing its position as one of the top bitcoin mining countries. The report suggested that miners had resorted to using virtual private networks (VPN) to conceal their location from authorities.

When China started cracking down against bitcoin miners, some reports indicated that this was being done in part to help the country achieve President Xi Jinping’s goal of carbon neutrality within four decades. The crackdown, along with pressure from climate activists, forced bitcoin mining to prioritize clean and renewable energy sources.

Now, more than three years later, the latest CCAF survey findings indicate that miners’ electricity mix is predominantly sustainable (52.4%)

“The survey indicates that miners’ electricity mix is predominantly sustainable (52.4%), with renewables accounting for 42.6%. Hydropower constitutes the largest sustainable source (23.4%), followed by wind (15.4%), nuclear (9.8%), solar (3.2%), and other renewables (0.5%). Fossil fuels make up 47.6%, primarily natural gas (38.2%), which is also the single largest energy source, followed by coal (8.9%) and oil (0.5%),” the CCAF report stated.

The survey data also revealed that the annualized electricity consumption associated with bitcoin mining in 2023 is estimated at 138 terawatt-hours, which represents a 17% increase year over year and about 0.54% of global electricity consumption.

CCAF noted that bitcoin miners in the survey reported a median electricity cost of $45 per megawatt-hour and “an all-in cost of $55.50 per megawatt-hour, with electricity constituting more than 80% of their cash-based operational expenses.”

Meanwhile, the CCAF survey data revealed that 98% of respondents’ power capacity is dedicated to bitcoin mining. Still, the survey report acknowledges that the bitcoin mining industry is at a “critical juncture,” and unless it starts to diversify, it is headed for even dire times.

“Diversification into high-growth sectors like HPC serving computationally intense AI workloads, leveraging existing infrastructure, is emerging as a key adaptive strategy,” the report explains.

The CCAF identifies innovative energy solutions like using flared natural gas, recovering waste heat, and demand-side response as some of the ways miners can deal with dwindling mining revenues. Hashprice hedging could also help manage financial risks in the future, similar to how energy price hedging is already a key risk mitigation strategy, the report added.