BeePool, the fourth largest Ethereum mining pool, will cease operations following Beijing’s anti-crypto stance.
Quick close of BeePool
The China-based Ethereum mining pool announced on Tuesday that it would suspend its operations “in response to the latest regulatory policy.” Effective immediately, the registration of new users and the addition of sub-accounts for existing users will be stopped. All mining access servers are expected to have stopped working by October 15 this year.
The announcement comes just a day after news that SparkPool, the second largest Ethereum mining pool, will be shutting down at the end of the month for similar reasons. BeePool and SparkPool together account for more than a quarter of Ethereum’s hash rate.
After a lull in the crackdown on cryptos, it became apparent late last week that the People’s Bank of China was ramping up a series of new measures and promoting stronger interdepartmental coordination to suppress crypto activity. The measures aim to cut off payment channels. The measures also ensure that relevant websites and mobile applications are removed in accordance with the law.
The mining crackdown has focused on Bitcoin mining for months, which saw a major exodus of mining activity from the country. Now, the Chinese government’s focus seems to have shifted to Ethereum.
On Monday, the Guang Ming media outlet reported that authorities in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region seized 10,000 Ethereum mining machines from a warehouse following a tip-off. The miners consumed 1,104 kilowatt hours of electricity.
Hard approach
According to the publication, Inner Mongolian authorities have shut down 45 digital currency mining projects so far. This is said to save 6.58 billion kWh of electricity per year. According to the outlet, this is equivalent to 2 million tons of standard coal.
The mining rigor has helped the price of Ethereum plunge below $3,000 on Tuesday. Currently, Ethereum is trading for approximately 2,930 each. This means that the price is approximately 4.3% higher than 24 hours ago.
BeePool has been active for four years and the mining pool currently accounts for 6.7% of the Ethereum mining share. Over 3,000 blocks have been mined in the past week. Although mining is now profitable, the introduction of fee burning on the Ethereum London hard fork has reduced profits. This is because miners receive fewer rewards for each block.
The next phase in the ongoing blockchain upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 was announced earlier on Wednesday, which is slated to be released some time in October. Miners will be further sidelined by the shift to proof-of-stake.