“Sichuan should take advantage of bitcoin mining, study the relationship between blockchain, digital currency and hydropower resources to create more business opportunities in the region,” said Jiang Yang, former vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission this October.

Sichuan, a mountainous province in southwestern China, has been home to the most bitcoin miners for its abundant and cheap hydroelectric energy.

According to the latest report from digital asset firm CoinShares, bitcoin miners in China have accounted for two-thirds of the network’s hash rate, and bitcoin miners in Sichuan province alone are responsible for 54% of the global hash rate.

Compared to the figures this June, China’s share was 60% of global hash rate and Sichuan controlled 48%. The report noted that Chinese share of hash rate as of this December is the highest recorded by CoinShares since the firm started monitoring the metrics in 2017.

Since its June report, the hashrate of the bitcoin network has nearly doubled from approximately 50 EH/s to 90 EH/s. That means, there have been more than 2.75 million units of S9 (14.5T) joining/rejoining the mining army in the past six months, of which Sichuan has contributed about 73%, or over 2 million S9 models, based on the region’s hashrate share increase.

The report believes that the combination of strong average bitcoin prices and availability of more powerful hardware have enabled a huge increase in network hashpower.

As previously reported by 8btc, bitcoin miners in China have already been replacing their old mining models with new powerful ones since this September when the rainy season in Sichuan started to come to an end.

While as latest-generation hardware further makes its way into the non-Chinese market, CoinShares expects China’s hashrate share to fall and bitcoin hash rate to be more evenly distributed across the globe.

Earlier this month, Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of People’s Bank of China, said that China used to take a lion share in “bitcoin mining”, ICOs and cryptocurrency transactions, which will certainly raise regulators’ concerns about investor protection and financial stability.

In late October, Jiang Yang, former vice-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said 70 per cent of the world’s bitcoins were produced in China, with India, the second-largest, accounting for just 4 per cent and the U.S. 1 per cent. Sichuan has become the country’s largest bitcoin mining site due to its rich hydropower resources. Blockchain can be involved in every industry. Its main application in the financial sector is digital currency with bitcoin as a key example. Jiang suggested that Sichuan should make good use of the foundation of bitcoin mining, study how Sichuan’s abundant hydro energy can maintain its attractiveness to digital currency-related industries in a bid to explore new economic opportunity and growth force.