Bitcoin (BTC) mining is booming as miners flock to the United States as well as Kazakhstan.

Six months after China banned Bitcoin mining, hash rate has nearly recovered, and BTC mining stocks are thriving.

Despite an impressive network recovery for China’s Bitcoin mining ban, the Bitcoin mining hash rate has returned to its highest levels since May 19.

The BTC hash rate is a measure of how many miners are actively searching for a hash on the SHA256 Bitcoin (BTC) network. It is currently at 160.1 TH/s.

Meanwhile, the SHA256 difficulty rate has been increasing for the first time since 2018, increasing an impressive eight times in a row.

The network difficulty is now at a familiar level of 21.66t, which is almost identical to the pattern seen just before the March rally.

Bitcoin mining has moved to a new location.

The unexpectedly rapid exodus of miners from China into various regulatory environments in North America and Asia has aided mining recovery. The Chinese ban has forced a complete rethinking of how Bitcoin’s hash rate is conceived in many ways.

The United States (35.4 percent), Kazakhstan (18.10 percent), Canada (9.55 percent), and Russia (11.23%) have all emerged as top mining destinations. However, miner concentration has increased, with the top 0.1 percent controlling 50% of mining capacity.

Bitcoin mining stocks are soaring on publicly traded exchanges in the wake of the recovery, clearly benefiting from both the institutionalization of BTC as an asset that can be used as collateral for fiat loans and the lack of competition in China.

Furthermore, some analysts believe that miners are hoarding BTC as a form of collateral, causing a supply shock in the market.

The impressive 217 percent average return on mining stocks in 2021 – which has so far outperformed BTC – has wowed investors.

In October, Bitfarm’s stock reached new highs in mining power, propelling the stock to a 12 percent gain on Tuesday, while Marathon Digital and Hive Mining both saw 11 percent gains this week.