Huobi’s Bitcoin Mining Pool Moves 100K BTC Following the Chinese Crackdown

After China recently banned all crypto-related activities in the country, crypto exchange Huobi Global had to limit mainland Chinese citizens from registering on the platform. As a consequence, the Huobi pool – the eighth biggest BTC pool-  is now moving a massive amount out of their funds, possibly to cover the client withdrawal needs on the exchange.

$4.21 Billion Flowing Out From Miners

Data from research company IntoTheBlock shows that Huobi Pool has recently moved almost 100,000 BTC or $4.21 billion at the time of writing. This is the largest inflow of funds since December 18, 2017, a year that saw Huobi dealing with Chinese authorities after they banned cryptocurrency trading. 

The recent China regulation resulted in the eighth biggest #Bitcoin pool, Huobi pool, moving a large amount of their funds

Almost 100k $BTC ($4.21b) flowing out from miners, the largest since Dec 18, 2017 Could it be to cover the client withdrawals needs on their exchange? pic.twitter.com/OeaH5o6cf7

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) September 28, 2021

Ethereum wallets were also on the move. As of 6:50 UTC, September 26, several ETH whales moved around 800,000 ETH – $2,29 billion – from Huobi to unknown wallets. It seems that most transaction activities came from a few wallets transacting batches of 100k ETH, as per data from Etherscan.

That same day, both Ethereum and Bitcoin saw daily negative exchange flows of over $100 million each, according to data from Glassnode.

Daily On-Chain Exchange Flow#Bitcoin $BTC
$495.4M in
$629.6M out
Net flow: -$134.2M#Ethereum $ETH
$439.0M in
$590.5M out
Net flow: -$151.5M#Tether (ERC20) $USDT
$371.4M in
$385.9M out
Net flow: -$14.5Mhttps://t.co/dk2HbGwhVw

— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) September 26, 2021

China’s Constant Attacks on Crypto

The constant Chinese crackdowns on cryptocurrencies have pushed exchanges to halt their operations in the country and stop new users from accessing their platforms. Interestingly, Huobi was one of the first affected.

Now, most of the market is in red again, with losses that top $100 billion in the last couple of days. Ethereum was one of the hardest-hit currencies, as the crackdown forced the world’s second-largest ETH mining pool, SparkPool, to suspend its services for all its users in an effort to be “maximally compliant with regulatory requirements,” as said by the company.

“SparkPool had stopped providing services to new users from mainland China on September 24, 2021 (UTC+8). A complete shutdown for all SparkPool services and operations for the existing users, at home or abroad, has been planned for September 30, 2021 (UTC+8) at 20:00 under the premise of ensuring the safety of our users’ assets.“

Separately, the NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China) confiscated 10,100 crypto mining rigs from a government-operated tech park in Inner Mongolia.