As China prepares its regulatory crackdown on Bitcoin mining and trading, the network’s mining difficulty suffered its greatest decrease this year falling down by 16% to 21 trillion.

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Falls by 16%

On May 30, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty dropped significantly by 16%, marking the largest decline this year.

On-chain data shows that Bitcoin’s mining difficulty adjusted to 21.05 Trillion at block height 685,440 with a 16% drop compared to its recent all-time high on May 13.

In fact, Bitcoin’s average block production interval has now increased to 11 minutes between May 13, the last mining difficulty adjustment date, and May 21, when China’s State Council announced that there needs to be a crackdown on bitcoin mining and trading in the country.

The average time it takes to produce a block is now 11 minutes 55 seconds, almost four minutes longer than on May 13, when block production averaged 8 minutes and 14 seconds.

That average block production interval was 18% faster than the network’s intended 10-minute-per-block production time, which means the average hash rate between May 13 and 21 has already dropped to around 147 exhashes per second (EH/s).

Chinese Mining Firms Halting Operation Due to Regulatory Concerns

With more than 75% of the Bitcoin miners based in China, mining firms in the country have been pulling operations out of the country as the government has called for a severe crackdown and punishment of “illegal securities activities,” including Bitcoin mining and trading.

Inner Mongolia has already begun its crackdown on Bitcoin mining operations and is reportedly considering adding Bitcoin miners to social credit blacklists and has proposed the revocation of telecommunications licenses for miners.

Besides, several crypto mining firms and exchanges have begun halting their operations in China, including Huobi, the eighth-largest mining pool, contributing 4% of the world’s Bitcoin hash rate.

The company stated on suspending mining hosting services and the sale of Bitcoin mining machines in the country.

Another mining pool, BTC.TOP has announced that it will suspend operations in China and would shift to North America, given the recent crackdown.