OKEx Bitcoin Mining Pool Shows Signs of Life After Precipitous Hashrate Drop

Cryptocurrency exchange OKEx is seeing slight signs of activity from its mining pool after losing 99.5% of its hashrate this autumn after the exchange suspended withdrawals from trading accounts.

OKEx bitcoin pool miners seemed to jump ship through late October and into November as the pool’s hashrate dropped from over 5,000 petahashes per second (PH/s) to below 20 PH/s only two weeks after the exchange suspended withdrawals.

Now the pool is starting to show signs of life.

Although still significantly below its previous hashrate levels, OKEx Pool's hashrate has rebounded to 198.67 PH/s, up by a factor of 11 from its lows in November of 18 PH/s.

In an email to CoinDesk, CEO Jay Hao said his firm’s strategy for gradual improvement and recovery ensures “regular in-depth communication with miners” to understand their “current and future needs.” Thanks to this, the pool is gradually recovering, according to Hao.

But the road to full recovery is long.

Before October, OKEx Pool was one of the world’s 10 largest mining pools, mining an average of more than 250 blocks per month in 2020, according to data from BTC.com.

In November, the pool only found three blocks. It has mined zero blocks so far in December.