"According to his bio on Harvard.edu, Mikao John was an erudite scholar: a medical student at the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology who'd studied statistics and biochemistry at Yale and published research in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine," reports Futurism: John was also a prolific author of blog posts on Harvard's site... But despite that veneer of academic authenticity, his posts didn't sound much like medical research. nstead, John's recent works carried titles like "KeefX.co: The Cannabis Fintech Company that Provides $1M in Funding a Month," which took the form of an extremely flattering article about a startup that provides financial services to weed businesses, and "Idahome Solar Makes Switching to Solar Power in Idaho a No-Brainer," which praised the "client-first mentality" and "incredible financing program" of a seemingly random solar panel company in Idaho.

As it turns out, there is no Harvard student by the name of Mikao John. Instead, a scammer invented that persona — and, alarmingly, managed to obtain the credentials to insert him into Harvard's web system — in order to sell SEO-friendly backlinks, and the prestige of being hyped up by someone at one of the world's most distinguished universities, to marketing firms with publicity-hungry clients.

The practice of scammers cooking up fake Harvard students to shill brands on the university's site appears to be widespread. In response to questions from Futurism, Harvard removed the Mikao John profile as well as about two dozen similar accounts being used for the same purpose... Swathes of Harvard.edu have become a spammer free-for-all where fake students and other accounts hawk an endless parade of dubious stuff: online casinos, synthetic urine, real estate in Florida, CBD, [42 more examples deleted] and many more incongruous yet trashy brands and services...

Overall, it felt as though if a reporter hadn't been sending numerous emails, the fake students probably would have been allowed to continue posting indefinitely.
Harvard eventually told the reporter that the scammers were signing up for their online classes, then using the email address they received to infiltrate the university's blogging platforms (writing fake posts about everything from bitcoin to concealed carry holsters and even bouncy castles.)

Ironically, Harvard's official motto (first adopted in 1643) is "Veritas" — the Latin word for truth.

Bitcoin is up 4% in the last 24 hours after El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele announced that his government had purchased an additional 420 BTC, which is equivalent to around $25 million. The country now holds an estimated 1,120 bitcoin. CoinDesk reports: "Today the markets were buoyed by news of additional state-level purchases from El Salvador, indicating the country's intentions to continue to acquire," said Jason Deane, analyst at Quantum Economics. Underlying sentiment remains extremely bullish for the top cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, according to Deane. The world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization reached an all-time high on Oct. 20 of around $66,900, a day after the first bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S. launched on the New York Stock Exchange. A week later, bitcoin's price fell below the $60,000 mark before retaking the level early Thursday.

Mark Cuban's basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, announced a five-year partnership with Voyager Digital yesterday that makes the company the team's first cryptocurrency brokerage. A report adds: The agreement also includes free Bitcoin for fans that sign up in the initial two days of the partnership, as explained by the Mavericks's digital content manager on Twitter.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Bitcoin is on a tear, reaching an all time high price of $67,000 for 1 BTC on Wednesday, buoyed by a series of approvals for Bitcoin futures funds on the stock market. But on one major U.S. exchange, the price flash-crashed 87 percent to roughly $8,200 on Thursday due to a bug in a trading algorithm. The crash occurred during a massive sell-off on the Binance.US exchange that occurred around 7:42 a.m. ET, Bloomberg reported. Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, and its Binance.US exchange is meant to be compliant with U.S. regulations, although it is still banned in several states.

According to a Binance.US spokesperson, the crash was due to an issue with a trading algorithm being run by one "institutional trader," which may indicate an investment fund of some sort. "One of our institutional traders indicated to us that they had a bug in their trading algorithm, which appears to have caused the sell-off," Binance.US told Bloomberg. "We are continuing to look into the event, but understand from the trader that they have now fixed their bug and that the issue appears to have been resolved." It's entirely possible that some lucky traders were at the right place at the right time and managed to snap up some incredibly cheap BTC, but mostly it's yet another example of weirdness along the edges of the crypto ecosystem.

Walmart has started a pilot program in which shoppers can buy Bitcoin at Coinstar kiosks in some of its U.S. stores. From a report: The test with Coinstar, which is known for the machines that let customers exchange U.S. coins for paper bills or gift cards, began earlier this month, Walmart spokeswoman Molly Blakeman said Thursday. The pilot includes 200 kiosks in Walmart stores. That's part of a broader initiative by Coinstar, which has teamed up with a cryptocurrency cash exchange called Coinme to offer Bitcoin at more than 8,000 kiosks. The pilot includes 200 kiosks in Walmart stores.

"Bitcoin ATMs have been around for a while, including in many supermarkets," said Sam Doctor, chief strategy officer and head of research at BitOoda, a regulated crypto brokerage. "Walmart expands Bitcoin access to more people, though, and gives it further legitimacy among skeptics, should they roll it out beyond an initial pilot." Walmart is testing the service weeks after a high-profile hoax in which a fake press release said the retailer would start letting customers pay with a cryptocurrency called Litecoin. While that announcement was false, Walmart is assessing the future of crypto in its operations. It advertised a job in August to develop "the digital currency strategy and product roadmap" while identifying "crypto-related investment and partnerships."

Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has hit a new all-time high above $65,000. From a report: The crypto broke above its previous high of $64,889 reached in April. Bitcoin is currently changing hands for around $65,607, up 4.2% over the past 24 hours. The latest rally pushed bitcoin's year-to-date terms to 122%, according to CoinDesk data. The largest cryptocurrency appears to have gotten a push on Tuesday from the launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, the first exchange-traded fund approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to invest in bitcoin futures. Indeed, the new fund, traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker $BITO, garnered a first-day trading volume of more than $1 billion, ranking it among the most successful launches of all time.

Tomorrow morning, the ProShare Bitcoin Strategy ETF is scheduled to begin trading. "Before you rush headlong into this market, it's important to understand that there are crucial differences" between an exchange-traded fund that's backed by actual Bitcoin and an exchange-traded fund like ProShare's that is backed by futures tied to the cryptocurrency," says Jared Dillian via Bloomberg. Here's why he says "a Bitcoin ETF on futures might not be such a good idea: The vast majority of commodity-based mutual funds and ETFs and are also backed by futures, but that's because the actual physical storage of most commodities is impractical, like with oil. Also, with almost all commodities most of the trading action and liquidity tends to happen in the futures market, not the spot market. The United States Oil Fund LP is the classic example of a commodity fund that is backed by futures. The fund earned some notoriety in 2020 when it scrambled to roll its futures contracts out the curve (in violation of its prospectus) in order to prevent the fund's bankruptcy in the event that the price of oil went negative -- which it did.

The United States Oil Fund case is an example of why a Bitcoin ETF on futures might not be such a good idea; it's impossible to predict what will happen in the futures market. But the main reason that people oppose futures-based ETFs is the cost of carry. When commodity futures are in contango, or when the price of deferred month contracts trade above front-month contracts, there is a significant cost to roll futures contracts from one month to the next, and that underperformance is passed to the investor. This has been a major complaint about commodity ETFs for years.

While commodity futures frequently trade in contango, they can also trade in backwardation, which is when deferred month contracts trade below front month contracts. In this case, investors earn a positive roll yield. Many commodity futures are trading in backwardation at the moment, although Bitcoin is in contango. There is no reason to believe that it might not one day be in backwardation. Gold is an example of a commodity where the ETFs hold the actual metal and not futures, because the storage and accounting of physical gold is fairly straightforward. So why can't a Bitcoin ETF hold actual Bitcoin? The reason is because the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's primary objection to physical Bitcoin funds is that the underlying market is unregulated. Well, the gold market is unregulated and we have physical gold ETFs, so what gives? The Bitcoin people are trying to figure this out. Dillian says there should be a physical Bitcoin ETF. "The Winkelvoss twins were the first to apply for one, back in 2013, when Bitcoin was trading below $1,000 (it's now around $62,000). If their fund had been approved, it would now likely be the largest, most liquid ETF in existence, and would have provided supercharged returns to a whole generation of investors."

The financial crimes investigation unit of the US Treasury Department, also known as FinCEN, said last week it identified approximately $5.2 billion in outgoing Bitcoin transactions potentially tied to ransomware payments. From a report: FinCEN officials said the figure was compiled by analyzing 2,184 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed by US financial institutions over the last decade, between January 1, 2011, and June 30, 2021. While the initial SAR reports highlighted $1.56 billion in suspicious activity, a subsequent FinCEN investigation of the Top 10 most common ransomware variants exposed additional transactions, amounting to around $5.2 billion just from these groups alone.

Bitcoin has been on a tear in recent weeks, approaching record high prices above $60,000, as crypto enthusiasts anticipate history in the making. Tomorrow morning, ProShares will launch a long-awaiting exchange-traded fund on the New York Stock Exchange linked to Bitcoin futures, the firm and the exchange told DealBook. From a report: The E.T.F. will give investors exposure to Bitcoin without having to hold the cryptocurrency directly, via any ordinary brokerage account. "2021 will be remembered for this milestone," said Michael Sapir, the C.E.O. of ProShares. Investors who are curious about crypto but hesitant to engage with unregulated crypto exchanges want "convenient access to Bitcoin in a wrapper that has market integrity," he said. For nearly a decade, crypto entrepreneurs and traditional finance firms have sought permission to launch a Bitcoin E.T.F. in the U.S., but their applications have been delayed or denied by the S.E.C. Many remain pending.

A Bitcoin futures E.T.F. falls short of what some purists want: a fund that holds crypto directly. Gary Gensler, the S.E.C. chair, recently suggested that the agency might allow crypto E.T.F.s based on futures -- bets on Bitcoin's price fluctuations rather than the underlying crypto itself -- that trade on a highly regulated exchange. Approval for the ProShares E.T.F., which is based on Bitcoin futures that trade on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, won't be announced by the S.E.C., but the firm's final prospectus met with no opposition ahead of its effective deadline, and the N.Y.S.E. is readying for launch tomorrow.

One month ago El Salvador made bitcoin legal tender in the country. The Motley Fool looks at how it's playing out: Even before the launch, President Bukele's push for Bitcoin was not popular at home or abroad. The IMF refused to help fund the rollout, warning of "macroeconomic, financial, and legal issues." And Salvadorians took to the streets to protest the Bitcoin project before and after the launch. One Central American University survey showed that 68% of people did not agree with the move.

The first stumbling block in El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment was that the price of Bitcoin fell 11% on the first day, and further in the days that followed. Crypto investors may be familiar with Bitcoin's volatility. But for many El Salvadorians, who'd each been given $30 worth of Bitcoin (about 0.00065 BTC) only to see its value tumble, it was another matter... In the U.S., Bitcoin is widely seen as a store of value — an investment that people hope will appreciate over time. But El Salvador is using it as a currency. And as a currency, Bitcoin's volatility is problematic, especially in a low-income country. According to Bloomberg, 1 in 4 Salvadorians make less than $5.50 per day.

Even in a higher-income country, it would be difficult for a company to accept payments in a currency that might rapidly shrink in value in a matter of weeks. Unless the business could transfer the money immediately into dollars (which is what happens with many crypto payments), it would play havoc with things like payroll, rent, and other obligations. This is exponentially harder to manage for a family with little cash to spare.
El Salvador also experienced technical glitches in both its bitcoin ATMs and the state-run wallet, according to the article. "It is a real shame that the El Salvadorian government rushed into launching Bitcoin as legal tender without first building the technical infrastructure and popular support that would have helped its ambitious scheme.

"Nonetheless, if we check in again in a year's time, there's still a chance we'll see a different story."

Less than a month ago Bitcoin's price was $40,683. Last night it reached $61,369 — a gain of more than 50% in just 24 days.

CNN attributes the October surge to "hopes that the Securities and Exchange Commission will soon approve a bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund." Bitcoin prices, which rose to nearly $62,000 Friday, are now only about 5% below their all-time high of just under $65,000 that they hit earlier this year. Investors are hoping that, in addition to approving a bitcoin ETF, U.S. financial agencies will continue to take a more measured approach to regulating cryptocurrencies. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and SEC chief Gary Gensler have suggested that the US won't crack down on crypto as severely as China has done. "With recent confirmation from both the Fed's Powell and SEC's Gensler that although regulations are coming, there is no China style clampdown envisioned, this will provide comfort to the broader institutional market that [bitcoin] is here to stay," said Seamus Donoghue, vice president of strategic alliances at METACO, a digital asset infrastructure provider.

Square CEO Jack Dorsey says the company is starting a "deep technical investigation" to create an open-source Bitcoin mining system. It comes as the price of Bitcoin passed $62,000 while threatening to pass the all-time high of $65,000. The Independent reports: Mr Dorsey said Bitcoin mining isn't currently accessible to everyone, but it should be as easy as plugging into a power source. "Silicon design is too concentrated into a few companies. This means supply is likely overly constrained. Silicon development is very expensive, requires long term investment, and is best coupled tightly with software and system design," Mr Dorsey said in a tweet. "If we do this, we'd follow our hardware wallet model: build in the open in collaboration with the community," he added.

The company's hardware lead building the wallet, Jesse Dorogusker, is also starting the technical investigation required to take on the mining project, Mr Dorsey said. While announcing Square is considering getting into the mining business, Mr Dorsey said the process needs to be more energy-efficient and more distributed. "The core job of a miner is to securely settle transactions without the need for trusted 3rd parties. This is critical well after the last bitcoin is mined. The more decentralized this is, the more resilient the Bitcoin network becomes," he said. "There isn't enough incentive today for individuals to overcome the complexity of running a miner for themselves," he added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Tether will pay $41 million to settle allegations it lied in claiming its digital tokens were fully backed by fiat currencies, putting a major compliance headache behind the world's biggest issuer of stablecoins even as regulatory scrutiny intensifies. For years, Tether told customers and the broader cryptocurrency market that it had $1 in reserve to back every token, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a Friday statement. That claim was wildly misleading, according to the agency. For instance, from June to September 2017, there was never more than $61.5 million backing Tether, even as roughly 442 million coins were circulating at one point.

"This case highlights the expectation of honesty and transparency in the rapidly growing and developing digital assets marketplace," said acting CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam. In its enforcement action, the CFTC said Tether failed to disclose that it held unsecured receivables and non-fiat assets as part of its reserves, and falsely told investors it would undergo routine, professional audits to demonstrate that it maintained "100% reserves at all times." In fact, Tether reserves weren't audited, the agency said. Until at least 2018, Tether manually kept tabs on its reserve levels, a process that wasn't updated in real time, the CFTC said. Tether didn't admit or deny the CFTC's allegations. "Tether agreed to resolve this matter in order to move forward and focus on the future," the company said in a statement posted on its website. The CFTC also announced that Bitfinex, a crypto exchange affiliated with Tether, was fined $1.5 million for permitting retail transactions by American residents.

Games that use blockchain technology or let users exchange NFTs or cryptocurrencies won't be allowed on Steam, according to a rule added to Valve's "What you shouldn't publish on Steam" list. The Verge reports: The change was pointed out by SpacePirate, a developer working on an NFT-based game, who said that the change was because the company doesn't allow game items that could have real-world value. But Steam could also be avoiding controversy with the move. Steam has a history of making controversial moderation decisions, especially when it comes to games with sexual content. In this case, though, it doesn't seem like people are pressing F to pay respects to NFT games -- a majority of the replies and quote tweets to SpacePirate's tweets are praising Valve for the move (or mocking those that are upset about it).

It's perhaps understandable why Steam would want to avoid having NFTs on its platform. Besides the justification cited by SpacePirate that they could have real-world value (which seems a bit weak, given the massive commercial communities around things like CS:GO skins and Team Fortress 2 hats), NFT and crypto-based games don't have the best reputations. There's the infamous Evolved Apes saga where a developer sold NFTs with the promise that they'd be included in a fighting game but then seemingly took the money and ran. There are some potentially interesting game concepts that use NFTs, but it's hard to say how many of them would've been a good fit for Steam even if they were allowed.

China's drive to root out cryptocurrencies has uncovered hundreds of miners who were using electricity at public institutions, a development that comes as the nation struggles with a power crunch. From a report: Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces recently started targeting miners who were consuming the resources of state-owned enterprises, government agencies, and universities and research institutes, according to a government statement and media reports that did not name the entities. Jiangsu found about one-fifth of some 4,500 internet protocol addresses associated with illegal mining activity belonged to public institutions, according to the media outlet The Paper, which cited provincial communications authorities. Some 260,000 kilowatt hours of electricity were being used per day, the newspaper added. Cryptominers typically link their equipment to cloud services called mining pools to verify transactions on blockchains, allowing their physical locations to be traced. That would lead investigators to accounts with electric companies.

The Zhejiang government published a statement on an official social account that included photos of equipment seized in raids, adding that 184 IP addresses were suspected of involvement in illegal mining exploiting public resources. "The rapid upgrading of mining hardware and fierce competition in computing power have resulted in massive energy usage, which is contrary to the carbon peak and carbon neutralization goals of the whole province as a major energy importer," the statement said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is poised to allow the first U.S. Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund to begin trading in a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency industry, according to people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg reports: The regulator isn't likely to block the products from starting to trade next week, said the people, who asked not to be named while discussing the decision. Unlike Bitcoin ETF applications that the regulator has previously rejected, the proposals by ProShares and Invesco Ltd. are based on futures contracts and were filed under mutual fund rules that SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has said provide "significant investor protections." Barring a last-minute reversal, the fund launch will be the culmination of a nearly decade-long campaign by the $6.7 trillion ETF industry. Advocates have sought approval as a confirmation of mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrencies since Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins best known for their part in the history of Facebook Inc., filed the first application for a Bitcoin ETF in 2013.

Approval has for years been out of the grasp of issuers who, amid myriad false signs of progress and outright rejections, have tried to get a variety of different structures cleared for trading. Over the years, there have been plans for funds that proposed to hold Bitcoin via a digital vault or that could use leverage to juice returns. Others sought to mitigate Bitcoin's famous volatility, a key point of contention for the SEC. [...] Four futures-backed Bitcoin ETFs could begin trading on U.S. exchanges this month, with deadlines for applications from VanEck and Valkyrie also approaching. Meanwhile, dozens of cryptocurrency exchange-traded products have launched in Canada and across Europe.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Texas' energy grid has problems. Those issues were laid bare this past winter when a storm put the state in a deep freeze, causing blackouts for millions and killing hundreds of people. Sen. Ted Cruz told a cryptocurrency conference in Austin last week that he believes the state's Bitcoin mining boom could repair its floundering energy grid. In a fireside chat at the Texas Blockchain Summit on Oct. 8, the Republican senator expressed his faith that the mass buildout of crypto mines in the Lone Star State could add additional energy capacity to the state's grid in the event of blackouts or power shortages. "Because of the ability to Bitcoin mining to turn on or off instantaneously, if you have a moment where you have a power shortage or a power crisis, whether it's a freeze or some other natural disaster where power generation capacity goes down, that creates the capacity to instantaneously shift that energy to put it back on the grid," Cruz told conference attendees.

Bitcoin mines, which typically consist of rooms full of specialized computers that churn numbers all day in search of the answer to a puzzle that creates the next block on the blockchain, are notorious for their energy use. Bitcoin mining is well-known to use more energy than many countries and corporations, and it's designed to become more difficult (and thus use more energy) as more miners plug into the network in search of profits as the price of Bitcoin increases. But in the event that the grid is being overburdened, these mines are essentially industrial energy consumers that can shut down instantaneously, freeing up additional grid space for the heating and cooling of homes, hospitals, and other critical infrastructure. Already, some miners in Texas are making a killing by shutting down during such times and selling their contracted power supply back to the grid. Texas is the perfect candidate for this setup, Cruz said, and Bitcoin mining could play "a significant role [in] strengthening and hardening the resilience of the grid." Tim De Chant from Ars Technica says the numbers and potential incentives that Sen. Ted Cruz touts "just don't add up." Here's why he thinks Cruz is wrong: First, large bitcoin-mining operations use hundreds or thousands of powerful computers, which create a demand for power. If power plants can profitably mine bitcoin using the electricity they generate -- and there are examples of that already -- it stands to reason that bitcoin mining could create enough demand that investors would be enticed to build new power plants. Those plants could theoretically be tasked with providing power to the grid in cases of emergency. At first glance, the argument holds up. But if you dig into it, even just a bit, things quickly fall apart.

For one, the blackouts during Texas' February cold snap happened because power companies failed to winterize their generators, whether they were natural gas, coal, nuclear, or wind. Lives were at stake, and yet the companies didn't prepare for the worst. Unlike power plants that serve the grid, bitcoin mining isn't critical infrastructure -- no one dies if a crypto data center shuts down. Plus, bitcoin miners are in the game first and foremost for the money, and they would be loath to spend extra cash to winterize their operations. But let's say the power stays on but demand surges. In that case, bitcoin miners would be unlikely to offer their generating capacity to the grid unless they were sufficiently compensated. Texas already has a system like that in place, offering generators a premium for bringing additional power online during shortages. During the February cold snap, wholesale electricity prices surged to $9,000 per MWh, the maximum allowed by law, leading to electricity bills as high as $10,000 for some people.

One bitcoin currently sells for $57,000, and to crunch the numbers to win that one bitcoin, mining rigs draw just under 0.285 MWh, based on Digiconomist estimates. In other words, for bitcoin miners to be willing to contribute to the grid, wholesale electricity prices would have to hit $206,000 per MWh, or nearly 23 times greater than prices during the February cold snap. Those $10,000 bills would turn into $230,000 bills. [...] At today's prices, the power plants that Ted Cruz is imagining would cost over $50 billion to build. At that price, there are probably more effective ways to stabilize Texas' grid.

Attention institutional investors: Whether you're a bonafide and laser-eyed true believer or a skeptical holdout, the risks from cryptocurrencies could be steadily "creeping" into your portfolio, according to MSCI. From a report: At least 52 companies representing $7.1 trillion in market capitalization have some exposure to cryptocurrencies, according to an analysis by MSCI. They range from all-in players like Coinbase to Bitcoin balance-sheet "hodlers" like Tesla and MicroStrategy to those dipping a toe into crypto-market services such as JPMorgan Chase. The growing importance of the volatile digital asset class brings with it an assortment of challenges for investors and companies alike as they try to assess the environmental, social and governance risks that come along with it, the report says. These include questions about everything from greenhouse gas emissions stemming from mining coins, to a lack of accounting standards for crypto and questions about transparency surrounding how the networks are run, according to MSCI. "Really simple questions start to become really tricky here," Harlan Tufford, who leads MSCI's North American corporate-governance research, said in a podcast discussing the report. "Like, who in the company knows the passkey to access your private anonymous wallet that stores, you know, a billion dollars in Bitcoin? And how do you monitor that?"

Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled tolerance of cryptocurrencies, which are drawing increasing scrutiny from regulators around the world amid fears they can be used for money laundering and criminal activity. From a report: Cryptocurrency "has the right to exist and can be used as a means of payment," Putin said in an interview with CNBC that was posted on the Kremlin's website Thursday. Still, he cautioned it was too soon to talk about using digital currencies for trading oil and other commodities that form the bulk of Russia's exports.

Russia has sought alternatives to trading in dollars since being slapped with sanctions in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea, and Putin accuses the U.S. of using its currency as a weapon. Crypto backers argue decentralized money will eventually replace fiat currencies issued by central banks. The Bank of Russia has repeatedly warned investors that the crypto market is extremely volatile, and digital currencies are not allowed to be used as a method of payment domestically. However, there are no plans for a blanket ban similar to China's, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev said this week, according to Interfax.

The US overtook China as the world's biggest source of bitcoin mining two months after Beijing banned crypto mining this year, new data have revealed. From a report: China's share of the global hashrate -- the computational power required to create bitcoin -- fell from 44 per cent to zero between May and July, showed figures published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance on Wednesday. The country accounted for three-quarters of the global hashrate in 2019. The US share of the global hashrate increased from 17 per cent in April to 35 per in August, while Kazakhstan rose 10 percentage points to 18 per cent in the same period.

China's State Council, or cabinet, banned cryptocurrency mining and trading in May, citing environmental and financial concerns. The decision prompted an exodus of miners in search of cheap energy and crypto-friendly politicians. China's bitcoin mining ban resulted in the "great mining migration," said Sam Tabar, chief strategy officer at Bit Digital, a New York-based bitcoin miner. The company suspended its operations in China, which it had been winding down since October 2020, after the prohibition. Michel Rauchs, digital assets lead at the closely watched Cambridge tracker, noted that "the effect of the Chinese crackdown is an increased geographic distribution of hashrate across the world," adding that it could be seen as "a positive development for network security and the decentralised principles of bitcoin."