The Exit of SBI Crypto and the Shifting Bitcoin Mining Landscape

The Bitcoin mining ecosystem underwent a notable shift on July 31 as SBI Crypto officially terminated its mining pool operations in Japan. This closure followed a month of significant decline in the pool’s processing power, marking the end of a once-prominent player in the sector. As the pool disconnected, the industry turned its attention to the resulting redistribution of hashrate and its impact on network centralization.

A Graceful Shutdown Amidst Declining Power

SBI Crypto’s departure was not an abrupt event but rather a calculated retreat characterized by a month-long drop in telemetry. By the time the final cutoff occurred at 23:59:59 UTC on July 31, the pool's seven-day average hashrate had plummeted by 64% within a single month. The transition involved a phased disconnect where share acceptance stopped, allowing miners to migrate their hardware to other service providers. Daily statistics highlighted the severity of the decline, with the pool's 24-hour average falling to just 0.452 EH/s in its final hours, a fraction of its June peak.

Impact on Network Centralization and Pool Dominance

The timing of the shutdown coincided with data showing that the industry's top three pools—Foundry USA, AntPool, and F2Pool—controlled approximately 60% of recent blocks. While this concentration raised concerns about centralisation, weekly data suggests the landscape remains fluid and complex. The immediate redistribution of SBI Crypto’s lost hashrate remains difficult to track, as it is currently absorbed into the aggregate totals of competing pools. Rather than a permanent shift in control, these fluctuations reflect a moment of transition as the mining community adjusts to the absence of a major Japanese institutional pool.