According to Coin Dance, Bitcoin’s highest hash rate was 96 EH/s at the end of July 2019. The hash rate increase would imply an increase in the mining difficulty for its next adjustment.
Bitcoin’s processing power, reflected through its hash rate, managed to surpass 80 EH/s recently, according to several block explorers on this chain.
The web portals Blockchain.com, Coin Dance and BitInfoCharts agree that in recent days the Bitcoin network has raised its hash rate above 80 EH/s, but does not share the date on which the event occurred. This could be because these Bitcoin blockchain explorers process the data differently. According to Blockchain.com, the milestone had not yet been reached until Sunday, August 18th, 2019.
Coin Dance shows that, by the end of July, the Bitcoin hash rate had not only exceeded 80 EH/s but had even reached 96 EH/s. On the other hand, the BitInfoCharts website shows that the milestone in question had first been reached by Bitcoin on August 7th, 2019. However, it should be mentioned that the hash rate of this network is above 80 EH/s once again.
Meaning of this Rise in the Bitcoin Hash Rate
Maybe the main cause behind the constant growth in the Bitcoin hash rate in 2019 is the change in the cryptocurrency market landscape, especially that of Bitcoin. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin and most of the other crypto assets in the foreign exchange market have experienced a significant rise, which has counteracted the effects of the dominant bearish trend of 2018.
The possibility of a change in trend gave the miners enough faith to reactivate their farms, previously partially or totally paralyzed by the poor mining performance at the end of last year. This led to a remarkable recovery of the Bitcoin hash rate in mid-2019.
Another cause is the arrival of more advanced technology, which allows the creation of more powerful and efficient Bitcoin mining equipment. The 7nm chips, present in several of the ASIC miners currently on sale, make it possible for equipment such as the BitMin AntMiner S17 Pro, and the Micro BT Whatsminer M20S, to reach 62 TH/s and 70 TH/s of power, respectively.
It is worth mentioning that, although some batches of the most advanced Bitcoin mining equipment have not yet been dispatched to their buyers, these may have been previously activated by some of their manufacturers. They could have done this, either to test them or to get some extra benefit from this equipment before delivering it. Bitmain, in particular, has been designated as a company that practices this policy.
Regarding the consequences of the rise in the Bitcoin hash rate, the most immediate is its impact on the mining difficulty. If it keeps increasing, so will the difficulty by the time of the next adjustment. This, in turn, would affect the profitability of Bitcoin mining. However, both the prices of BTC in the market and the hash rate of its network are values that fluctuate constantly. Hence, the profitability of cryptocurrency mining is something that is best calculated in the long term.
By Willmen Blanco
