BTCC was once the second largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by volume.
The Hong Kong-based company that mines Bitcoin, Litecoin, Super Bitcoin, and Bitcoin Cash, said that it is shutting down its BTCC Pool mining pool, bringing an end to its operations entirely on November 30.
The news came only a few months after BTCC's mining pool was responsible for more than 1 percent of the total Bitcoin hashpower. Since then, however, the numbers have been steadily declining to the point that BTCC’s mining pool doesn’t even register on blockchain.info, a service that provides Bitcoin data charts, stats, and market information.
BTCC said “business adjustments” as the motivating factor for shutting down its mining pool "indefinitely".
Coincidentally, this news comes amid notable shifts in the Bitcoin mining landscape. After stagnant price action pushed up costs for miners across the board, not only smaller miners were suffering as industry heavyweights are also affected.
Read: Bitcoin Miners With Almost $5 Billion Revenue, But With Less To No Profitability
BTCC was founded in June 2011, originally with the name BTC China. It was China's first Bitcoin exchange, one of the longest-running that also undertakes the responsibility of promoting the development of the blockchain ecosystem.
The company was once at the top-three trading platforms in China, before regulators effectively banned cryptocurrency trading in September 2017.
Most of BTCC's customers are thought to be from the domestic market. In 2018, the company was thought to have almost 150 employees.
BTCC Pool, the mining operation operated by by BTCC, began its activities in 2014 as one of the company's several business verticals, alongside cryptocurrency wallet Mobi and a USD/BTC exchange.
Since the news also comes the same week in which a research was published that further criticizes the energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining, many believed that part of the reason why the company is shutting down its mining pool is because it is not a profitable as it once was because of the continuous bear market that the industry is facing.
"We firmly believe that the cryptocurrency assets and the blockchain industry represented by Bitcoin will continue to develop and improve," BTCC's statement added. "We will see you again!"
