Bitcoin: a mysterious Chinese mining pool appears after the halving…

The occurrence of Bitcoin halving was the big topic of conversation this week in the cryptosphere. While one could expect this division by two of the mining awards of BTC to make miners reluctant, it appears on the contrary that a new mining pool has chosen this timing to reveal itself!

A mysterious pool called "Lubian.com"

According to statistics from BTC.com , a new Bitcoin mining pool has risen to 6th place in the BTC network's hashrate (its computing power).

Spotted and listed only since May 12, the Lubian.com pool - obviously of Chinese origin according to its site - would have started production just two weeks before the halving , by mining a first block on April 27 (the block N ° 627 441 to be precise).

As we can see below, this pool contributed 6% of the total hashrate of consensus by Proof of Work (PoW) of Bitcoin during the last 3 post-halving days .

Percentage contribution of mining pools to computing power on Bitcoin - Source: btc.com

Over 24 hours , Lubian's contribution was 6.58 PE / s (exahashes per second) out of the 117.42 PE / s of the BTC network.

A large private pool that falls under the mask?

As aptly pointed Dovey Wan , the crypto-fund Primitive Ventures on Twitter  : there is a good chance that this mining pool existed previously done so private and hidden , and she would be publicly revealed that only in recent weeks.

Indeed, as Dovey Wan points out in a second tweet (below), the other BTC mining pools do not seem to have experienced a significant drop in their hashrate . And this, despite the 6% cake share of the “new ”comer. Lubian would therefore have started these operations, in private, for some time ...

Twitter account @DoveyWan

To add a little to the mystery of this mining pool, it appears that it was called " Buffett  ", before being renamed Lubian up to block 629 755. A nod to the billionaire and investor Warren Buffett , well known for his total disinterest in Bitcoin and cryptos?

It is in any case curious that this pool chose precisely this moment - the passage of rewards from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC per block - to reveal itself to the public. Especially since it is estimated that halving will have the impact of lowering the computing power on Bitcoin by 30 to 35% , following the abandonment of activity by the least profitable miners.