SBI Crypto Shuts Down Mining Pool With 2% of Bitcoin Hashrate
SBI's pool, which accounts for about 2% of Bitcoin's hashrate, will shut down on July 31. The closure comes after pressure on mining margins and earlier concerns tied to a $21 million hack.
Key Takeaways
- SBI Crypto will shut down its mining pool on July 31 and will stop accepting mining shares after that.
- According to Hashrateindex, the pool accounts for about 2% of total Bitcoin hashrate.
- SBI Crypto did not give a reason for the shutdown and did not cite the earlier hack as the cause.
SBI Crypto said it will shut down its mining pool on July 31, leaving miners with less than a month to redirect their hashrate. Because the pool is connected to one of Japan's largest financial groups, its exit stands out as a meaningful loss for the Bitcoin mining sector.
Pool Stops Accepting Shares
SBI Crypto said the pool will stop taking mining shares on the shutdown date. Those shares are the contributions miners submit to the pool, and anything sent after that deadline will no longer be accepted. The company added that the pool will operate as usual until then and asked customers to keep mining through the cutoff so their shares are included in the final payout.
According to Hashrateindex data, the pool makes up about 2% of total Bitcoin hashrate. SBI Crypto did not explain why it is closing the service and did not share current hashrate figures for the pool. The pool first went public in 2021, when SBI said it would back it with about 1.1 EH/s of its own mining power.
Pressure on Bitcoin Mining
The shutdown lands at a time when Bitcoin mining is facing tighter margins, swings in hashrate, and higher operating costs. Bitcoin hashrate has eased from its October peak, while Bitcoin's price has dropped and some miners are moving capacity into AI infrastructure. Bitcoin is down about 50% over the past year from the all-time high it hit in the fall.
For European crypto readers, the key point is that a pool this large is exiting the market on a short timeline. That could change how hashrate is distributed across other pools, while miners also weigh whether to stay in traditional mining or put their hardware to work on AI-related workloads.
Security Concerns Still Linger
Last year, SBI Crypto was also tied to a $21 million hack (€18.4 million), and blockchain researcher ZachXBT pointed to signs that suggested attacks from North Korean state actors. SBI does not mention that incident in its shutdown notice as a reason for ending the pool. Even so, the combination of security concerns and business pressure shows how exposed mining services can be, especially when they sit inside a larger financial group.
