A new report by data and analysis provider TokenInsight published Friday says the future of cloud-based bitcoin mining is in Russia, not China, according to AMB Crypto.
The news outlet writes that this overturns the common conception that China’s the only dominant player in the bitcoin mining industry.
With cloud-based bitcoin mining, users rent a computer system owned by someone else, elsewhere, and use the computer’s hash power to mine cryptocurrencies. This means the user doesn’t have to bother with up-front mining costs—like buying a bespoke mining rig and finding a place to put it.
Through user analysis on cloud-based bitcoin mining sites, TokenInsight discovered that, though mainland China’s monthly unique visitors are fairly high, those of Russia is even higher.
This reflects a “strong interest in cloud mining products outside of China,” Johnson Xu, an analyst at TokenInsight, told Decrypt.
In fact, according to data TokenInsight pulled from SimilarWeb, unique monthly visitors from Russia were almost double that of mainland China; Russians comprised around 130,000 unique visitors, while mainland China comprised around 80,000. Next up was Ukraine, with around 56,000 unique monthly users.
The report attributes this to the “ease of Russia’s policies on cryptocurrency and the weather advantages brought by the cold climate.”
For those considering investing in cloud-based bitcoin mining—Russian or otherwise—one piece of advice can be inferred from TokenInsight’s report: Go big or go home. Around 60% of all cloud-based bitcoin mining contracts last between six months to a year, but the market is moving at such a rapid pace, that the less powerful miners quickly become unprofitable.
