The state of Texas has grown to become the absolute leader in terms of BTC mining in the United States. This situation does not come out of nowhere.
Texas is climbing to the top in BTC mining
The latest analysis by Digital Resource Experts reveals that Texas is now the undisputed cryptocurrency mining giant in the US, eclipsing the competition and controlling as much as 28.5% of the total computing power of the Bitcoin network.
The statement is published by Foundry, a global Bitcoin mining giant that aggregates and shares data provided directly by users. As recently as 2021, the company estimated that Texas accounted for 8.4% of global computing power. At that time, although it remained in the lead, it was second only to states such as New York (9.5%) and Georgia (34.2%), which have now dropped to 8.8% and 9.6%, respectively.
The changes in the state of Georgia are the result of the lack of involvement of a major player, which as recently as 2021, accounted for a significant portion of output. Meanwhile, in New York, the situation has stalled since the introduction of a memorandum against fossil-fueled mining.
Other states such as Nebraska, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Washington have also seen significant declines in mining activity.
Incentives have worked
Texas has attracted miners by offering favorable government incentives to support the stability of the power grid. During the most critical times of summer and winter, grid operator ERCOT asks miners to suspend mining to provide power to residents, and then rewards their companies for halting activity.
Jason Les, CEO of Riot, stressed in a press release earlier this month that local energy relief “significantly reduces the cost of Bitcoin mining.” In addition, the company now has ambitious expansion plans in Navarro and Milam counties after rival Cipher Mining acquired 11,000 mining machines for its local mine in May.
Foundry is also expanding on Texas soil, acquiring mining areas from Compute North, which collapsed last year and succumbed to market pressures.
It is worth noting that Foundry’s data was collected in July, during a period of severe restrictions on miners in the region, suggesting that the current estimate of 28.5% may be extremely conservative.
Cambridge set to update global BTC mining data
Meanwhile, the University of Cambridge is announcing an update to its famous Bitcoin mining map early next year.
“With each update, we are keen to have a representative sample size, so that individual pools don’t affect the results too much,” – explains Alexander Neumueller, research manager at Cambridge on the Climate Impact of Digital Assets.
“To me, the huge increase in Texas’ share is not surprising, given the conversations we’ve had with key players in the industry.” – He adds. “I expect the landscape looks dramatically different than in our last study from January 2022, especially when it comes to China and Kazakhstan.”
