OKX, one of the largest crypto exchanges by trading volume, has announced that its mining pool services will be phased out from today.
The firm will halt new user registrations on Jan. 26, with existing users able to continue to use the pool until Feb. 25. All OKX mining pool-related services will be discontinued on Feb. 26.
OKX, which rebranded from OKEx in January 2022, said it had made the decision due to “business adjustments,” but did not elaborate further.
OKX’s pool previously supported the mining of multiple proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, as well as offering staking services. However, many of the supported assets had already been terminated in recent years and now only Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum Classic pool services are displayed on its website, with a total of just 19 active miners.
Withdrawal suspension saw OKX’s hashrate drop
At one point, OKX’s Bitcoin mining pool had grown to about 5% of the blocks mined on the network.
However, following a temporary suspension of withdrawals on the crypto exchange on Oct.16, 2020 — as one of its private key holders was “cooperating with a public security bureau in investigations” — hashpower connected to the pool dropped dramatically from 9,000 PH/s to 20 PH/s, and it has struggled to recover since. The pool’s current 528 TH/s represents less than 0.0001% of Bitcoin’s total hashrate.
The Block has reached out to OKX for comment.
