New Chinese mining firm becomes the sixth-largest mining pool

Lubian, a new Chinese mining operation has become the sixth-largest mining pool. BlockBeats, a Chinese blockchain news outlet revealed this news on May 12 via a tweet, noting that the pool accounted for 5.67% of bitcoin’s (BTC) blocks in the past week. Per the tweet, Lubian has achieved this milestone after processing its first block on April 24.

The tweet read,

“Spot: Brand new China’s mining pool Lubian has mined 5.67% #BTC blocks in the past week, the first block they mined was 627,441 on April 24, 2020.”

Spot: Brand new China's mining pool Lubian has mined 5.67% #BTC blocks in the past week, the first block they mined was 627,441 on April 24, 2020. #btcmining pic.twitter.com/4pqPmQ72S0

— BlockBeats｜We're hiring! (@BlockBeatsAsia) May 12, 2020

Industry expert; Lubian must have been a private pool before its public debut

Reportedly, Lubian accounts for 5.15% of the total BTC hash rate at the moment.  Trying to explain the operation’s success in such a short period after its debut, Dovey wan, a founding partner at Primitive Ventures and an industry spectator said,

“Today, a new, mysterious pool with over 6E hash rate just pops up to top 10, right after the halving. It must be a private pool before now reveals itself to be public as hash rate didn’t see a pop. Interesting timing.”

Today, a new, mysterious pool with over 6E hashrate just pops up to top 10, right after the halving 🤔🤔

It must be a private pool before now reveals itself to be public as hashrate didn’t see a pop

interesting timing pic.twitter.com/NXoirZe4kt

— Dovey "Rug the fiat" Wan (hiring) (@DoveyWan) May 12, 2020

According to Wan, whoever owns the pool must have possessed the bootstrapping hash rate to start with. This is because other pools did not experience a significant drop-off. She added that one entity accounting for 5% of BTC’s block production depicts how the mining sector is directed towards the mining whales and sharks.

Bitcoin halving set to impact the mining sector significantly

After Bitcoin’s halving, the mining space is set to experience some major changes. This is because the halving has now reduced miner rewards from 12.5 BTC per block to 6.25 BTC per block. As such, most miners using older mining rigs are reportedly leaving the network. This is because their operations are no longer be profitable. Consequently, there will be a 15% to 30% drop in the total hash rate.

However, Alejandro De La Torre, the vice president of Poolin, a major mining pool believes the introduction of new mining devices could reset this metric.

Do you think Bitcoin’s halving will discourage small-scale miners from producing blocks? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.