US Mining Share Shrinks as Russia Gains Ground in Bitcoin's Top Three
Top three countries still dominate, but balance shifts
Bitcoin's mining activity is still concentrated in three countries, but the balance is changing. According to Hashrate Index's October comparison, the United States saw its estimated share drop while Russia grew. China also declined slightly.
The US went from about 345 EH/s to 335 EH/s, while Russia rose from 162 EH/s to 170 EH/s. China fell from roughly 115 EH/s to 110 EH/s. The three countries still account for about 65.4% of the network, down from 66.2%.
The global network estimate remained almost flat, moving from about 940 EH/s to 941 EH/s over the period.
What the numbers show
- The US share fell from 36.7% to 35.6%.
- Russia's share rose from 17.2% to 18.1%.
- China's share slipped from 12.2% to 11.7%.
- The top three countries' combined share declined by about 0.8 percentage points.
How the estimate is made
Hashrate Index, a mining data platform owned by Luxor Technology, produces these country estimates. Its methodology combines pool data, ASIC trading flows, and firmware adoption trends, according to the provider's own summary.
The report is labeled a fourth-quarter update but covers observations from the preceding third quarter. A July comparison edition used data from June.
The article notes that Cambridge's separate mining-map methodology warns that pool samples may be unrepresentative and that VPNs or proxies can distort inferred location.
Location is not ownership
The country estimates measure where computing work is estimated to occur. They do not measure who owns the mining equipment or which pools coordinate the work.
Bitcoin's pooled-mining system separates the miners supplying computing power from the pool that coordinates it and distributes rewards. A miner can supply work through a pool without having control over which transactions are included in blocks.
A new protocol called Stratum V2 gives miners the optional ability to choose transactions, but the article does not say how widely that capability is currently used.
A fuller assessment of decentralization would require data on beneficial ownership and evidence about pool participation and block-template selection, neither of which the quarterly country figures provide.
What is still unclear
The reported share changes are small, and the article provides no uncertainty range or confidence interval to show whether the differences are statistically meaningful.
Additionally, a change in where mining activity is estimated to occur does not necessarily mean physical machines moved from one country to another. Equipment can switch on or off in different locations without being transferred.
Why this matters for Bitcoin's decentralization debate
Geographic concentration of mining has long been a concern in the Bitcoin community. More distributed mining is often seen as making the network harder to disrupt.
However, geographic distribution alone does not prove greater decentralization. The same pool operators could coordinate work across more countries, and equipment ownership could remain concentrated even if mining activity spreads.
Source
Newisty Editorial Team covers technology, cryptocurrency, digital products, online platforms, developer tools and the wider digital economy. Our content is researched from official sources, company announcements, public documentation, market data and other primary or reputable sources. Articles are reviewed and edited before publication for clarity, accuracy and useful context.