Chinese Ethereum Mining Pool BeePool to Shut Down Following Crackdown

BeePool, the world’s fourth-largest Ethereum mining pool in terms of processing power, or hashrate, will suspend all its services to miners starting on Oct. 15 at 15:59 UTC (11:59 a.m. ET), the company said on Tuesday.

For now, the China-based mining pool operator has suspended registrations for new users and new subsidiary accounts for existing users, according to a notice on BeePool’s official website.

The company said it is halting its services due to regulatory and compliance concerns from last week’s crackdown by the Chinese government. The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, intensified its crackdown on cryptocurrency, declaring crypto-related transactions illegal.

The move came just after SparkPool, another top China-based Ethereum mining pool operator, announced it would be discontinuing operations as of Sept. 30, citing similar reasons.

Profit margins for Ethereum mining have widened thanks to the cryptocurrency’s bull run, the deflationary effect on its price from its recent technical upgrade and a higher gas fee driven by the non-fungible token (NFT) boom.

Some miners had quietly resumed Ethereum mining operations in mainland China after it was banned by the State Council of China in May.