Over the past few months, 14 of the world's largest mining companies have exported more than 2 million pieces of equipment from China. The main recipients have been Russia, Kazakhstan, the United States and Canada, the Financial Times reports.
Bit Digital, one of the largest US mining companies, has hired an international logistics company to move its devices out of China and expects to receive nearly 1,000 devices in New York Harbor. Company representatives said:
"We started moving the fleet in March 2020, which was a big move in the future. When the ban was announced, there were 20,000 miners in China."
Eight of the 10 largest mining companies in North America have increased their mining capacity since the Chinese ban. In June, Canada's Hut8 bought 24,000 miners from MicroBT. In August, Bitmain sold 30,000 devices to Las Vegas-based Marathon Digital Holdings. Due to the "enthusiastic liquidation," the price of the Antminer S19 device manufactured by Bitmain decreased by 41.7% from May to July.
Russian mining firm BitCluster received more than 5,000 devices in the weeks following the ban, and BitRiver claims to have received as many as 1.8 million inquiries for miners from China over the past few months. Company representatives have said:
"The focus of the market has shifted from a lack of equipment to a lack of space for its placement."
According to analysts at Arcane Crypto, just 700,000 Chinese miners have not returned to the network following the ban and are likely to remain in warehouses.