BeePool, the fourth-largest Ether (ETH) mining pool, is endmost amidst China's crypto crackdown.

The Mainland china-based Ether mining pool appear on Tuesday it would suspend operations "in response to the latest regulatory policies."

Effective immediately, the registration of new users and the addition of sub-accounts for existing users volition be discontinued, and all mining access servers are expected to have stopped operating by Oct. xv.

The announcement comes simply a solar day after news broke that SparkPool, the second-largest Ether mining pool, volition have suspended operations by the end of the month for similar reasons.

Betwixt them, BeePool and SparkPool business relationship for more than than i quarter of Ethereum's hash charge per unit.

Following a lull in its crypto crackdown, late last calendar week, it became clear the People'southward Bank of China was ramping up a suite of new measures and promoting stronger inter-departmental coordination to suppress crypto action. The measures aim to cut off payment channels and to dispose of relevant websites and mobile applications in accordance with the police force.

The mining crackdown has focused for months on Bitcoin (BTC) mining, which saw a major exodus of mining operations from the country. Now, the Chinese government's focus appears to have shifted to Ethereum.

On Monday, the Guang Ming media outlet reported that authorities in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia had seized 10,000 Ether mining machines from a warehouse afterwards a tip-off. The miners were consuming 1,104 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Co-ordinate to the publication, Inner Mongolian authorities accept close downwards 45 digital currency mining projects so far, reportedly saving 6.58 billion kWh of electricity per year, which the outlet claims is equivalent to 2 million tons of standard coal.

The mining crackdown has contributed to ETH'south cost dropping beneath $three,000 on Tuesday, and it is currently trading at $ii,863.71 according to CoinGecko.

BeePool has been operating for iv years, and the mining pool currently accounts for 6.seven% of the Ethereum mining share, with over three,000 blocks mined in the last calendar week.

Related: Alibaba to ban crypto miner sales amid Chinese crackdown

While mining is profitable at present, the introduction of fee burning on the Ethereum London hard fork has reduced profits as miners receive fewer rewards for each block.

The next phase in the blockchain'due south ongoing upgrade to Ethereum 2.0 was announced earlier on Wednesday, which is slated for some time i Oct. Miners will be further sidelined by the shift to proof-of-stake.