I dont think the system is more centralised now than before the China Ban, as the China has power hasnt moved to a new destination altogether, but splitted over multiple destinations, even if some of them could be short lived (Kazakistan).
Concentration in mining might be a problem on other level of the supply chain (ASIC foundries, mainly).
According to what can be read (although such data are very dubious), after China dropped out of crypto mining, the US increased its global hash rate to over 35%, an increase of more than 100% over the previous period. Consequently, all these anti-pollution fighters have now even managed to reach the US Congress, which they will certainly use to try to impose their agendas. A year earlier, something like this would not have been possible, because US miners allegedly had only a 15-16% stake in hash power, now they have more than 1/3 and will certainly not stop there.
During the crackdown, 26 major Bitcoin mining hubs were forced to shutter in Sichuan, and during one week in June more than 70% of the total mining capacity in China went offline, industry analysts estimate.
Following the ban, the U.S., Kazakhstan, and Russia took Chinas place. The U.S.s global hashrate share reached around 35.4%, up from 16.8% before the China crackdown.
I'm curious whether the hearing will clear up anything or will make the things even worse (because, meh, politics...)
And I would not go so far to say they're "mercenaries of the banking system", at least not all of them. They're more probably manipulated than paid...
All of them should be sent to school to learn the basics of mathematics and statistics, because if in the past we concluded that according to all relevant research Bitcoin annually consumes about 0.2% of the world's electricity, and more than 50% is from renewable sources. I still think that money is the main motivator, although there are certainly weirdos among them who believe that the earth is flat, that Martians have bases in wheat fields and that Bitcoin is the work of Satan
