Sparkpool, the second-largest Ethereum mining pool in the world is shutting down all its operations. The decision came after China announced that cryptocurrency transactions are illegal as of Friday. The Chinese crackdown on crypto continues to result in billions of losses to crypto traders.

Sparkpool announced that it had suspended access to new users in mainland China following the Chinese authorities request to halt all crypto mining operations in the country. The move represents the daunting effort that the Chinese government is making to combat crypto adoption across China.

According to the announcement, the measures intend to ensure safety of users’ assets in response to “regulatory policy requirements.” “Further details about the shutdown will be sent out through announcements, emails, and in-site messages,” Sparkpool noted.

SparkPool's 4 Years Success comes to an End

SparkPool started its operations in 2018. The mining pool has blossomed as a leading mining pool of Ether (ETH) to quickly become the second largest mining pool globally after Ethermine. As of this writing, SparkoPool’s mining power represents 22% of Ethereum’s global hash rate. Meanwhile Ethermine represents 24% of the global harsh rate, according to data from Poolwatch.io.

The news shocked Ethereum investors as China continues to reinforce its crackdown on crypto by illegalizing all crypto-related transactions in the country last Friday. The decision didn’t only affect crypto mining firms as cryptocurrency exchanges were a major player in the crypto industry that got affected.

For instance, exchanges such as Binance and Huobi have suspended new account registrations from mainland China, albeit reportedly still servicing users in Hong Kong.

As Ethereum continues its switch from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake model in 2022 — part of the long-planned upgrade known as Ethereum 2.0. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Ether miners will not have many choices after Ethereum 2.0 finally arrives, as their mining equipment is set to become obsolete.