Another Ethereum mining pool has been forced to shut down due to China’s crackdown

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Another Ethereum mining pool has been forced to shut down Another Ethereum mining pool has been forced to shut down due to China's crackdown

BeePool, the fourth largest Ethereum mining pool, is shutting down amid China’s crypto crackdown.

The China-based Ethereum mining pool announced Tuesday that it will suspend its operations “in response to the latest regulatory policies.”

Effective immediately, registration of new users and the addition of sub-accounts for existing users will be discontinued, and all mining access servers are expected to cease operating by October 15.

The announcement comes just a day after it was reported that SparkPool, the second largest Ethereum mining pool, will suspend operations by the end of the month for similar reasons.

Among them, BeePool and SparkPool account for more than a quarter of Ethereum’s hash rate.

After a lull in the crypto campaign, it became clear late last week that the People’s Bank of China was ramping up a raft of new measures and promoting stronger interdepartmental coordination to crack down on crypto activity. The measures are aimed at cutting off payment channels and getting rid of related websites and mobile applications in accordance with the law.

The mining campaign for several months focused on Bitcoin mining which saw a huge exodus of mining operations from the country. Now, it appears that the focus of the Chinese government has shifted to Ethereum.

Guangming Media reported on Monday that authorities in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region seized 10,000 ether mining machines from a warehouse after a tip-off. The miners were consuming 1,104 kWh of electricity.

According to the bulletin, Inner Mongolian authorities have shut down 45 virtual currency mining projects so far, reportedly providing 6.58 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, which outlets claim is equivalent to two million tons of standard coal.

The mining drive contributed to the price of ETH dropping below $3000 yesterday and it is currently trading at $2863.71 according to CoinGecko.

BeePool has been in operation for four years and the mining pool currently accounts for 6.7% of the Ethereum mining share with over 3,000 blocks mined in the past week.

Related: Alibaba Bans Sales of Crypto Miners Amid Chinese Campaign

While mining is now profitable, the introduction of fee burning on the London Ethereum hard fork has reduced profits as miners get lower rewards per block.

The next phase of the ongoing blockchain upgrade to Eth2 was announced earlier today for the month of October. Miners will be further marginalized by the shift to Proof of Stake.