Bitcoin Magazine: Poolin Reduces Hash Rate

The passage that follows was taken from a recent issue of Bitcoin Magazine Pro, which is the premium markets weekly published by Bitcoin Magazine. Subscribe right now to get these insights and other on-chain bitcoin market research delivered directly to your email, and you’ll be among the first to receive them.

Poolin, one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools, temporarily halted withdrawals from their wallet service, known as PoolinWallet, a few days ago. This move was made in an effort to maintain asset stability and keep liquidity intact. This is notable for two reasons: 1) Poolin is a mining pool service based in China that has continued to operate in China despite the mining prohibition, and 2) the pool was believed to have about 10% of the hash rate before withdrawals were banned.

The good news is that Bitcoin miners who are concerned about PoolinWallet withdrawals and using their mining pool service have a straightforward solution available to them: move to another mining pool, a process that just takes a few seconds (as just one example, miners can instantly switch to Slush Pool and set up auto withdrawals). Switching to a different pool would not unfreeze withdrawals from Poolin; however, it will offer the hash rate market with a way to vote with their ASICs in real time and choose a global pool that is more competitive.

To this point, it has been the case during the course of the last few days. A look at the distribution of the pool over three months reveals that 10.5% of the hash rate went to Poolin. The most recent perspective of three days shows that the share of the hash rate has decreased by more than half, coming in at 4.83%. Although a view of three days doesn’t always capture the data with perfect accuracy, the estimations point to a clear trend: the hash rate is moving away from Poolin at a good clip.

The fact that Poolin announced its relationship with Three Arrows Capital back in June of 2020 is an interesting tidbit to take into consideration.

Poolin Wallet and Three Arrows Capital Have Formed a Strategic Partnership bitcoin

If the two companies were still financially interlinked during the fall of Three Arrows Capital amid the crypto industry contagion, then that event could very well have played a factor in Poolin’s “liquidity issues,” despite the fact that the precise cause of Poolin’s “liquidity issues” is not exactly known.