The China Bitcoin ban of 2021 was the ultimate stress test for the network.
At the time, over 50% of all Bitcoin mining happened in China. In one stroke, the Chinese authoritarian government banned it all. They shut down the massive server farms. They kicked out the miners. They made trading illegal.
The hash rate (computing power) of the entire global network crashed by 50% overnight. It was a scary moment.
What happened next? Absolutely nothing.
– The Bitcoin network didn’t stop producing blocks.
– No transactions were lost or censored.
– The price crashed briefly, but then recovered to new highs.
The miners simply packed up their machines and moved to Texas, Kazakhstan, and Paraguay. Within six months, the hash rate had fully recovered to pre-ban levels.
The failed China Bitcoin ban proved definitively that Bitcoin is stronger than any single country. Even a superpower couldn’t kill it.