MASSIVE RECOVERY: Hash Power Several Times Greater Than When BTC Was at $20k!
The last time we looked at Bitcoin’s hash power, we noted how the mining ecosystem powering Bitcoin was becoming more distributed, with the dominant mining pools owning less of the lion’s share of Bitcoin’s total hash power. That was back in September 2018, and a lot has happened in the blockchain space since.
In the last hash power report, Bitcoin’s network was at 50,000 PH/s (50,000,000 TH/s). As 2018 drew to a close, Bitcoin’s price continued to plummet, pushing miners towards bankruptcy as it became less profitable to mine.
To make matters worse, the mining war within the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community also played its part. Large mining pools diverted vast amounts of their computing power from BTC and into the two iterations of BCH. As the fight continued throughout Q4 of 2018, Bitcoin’s hash rate tumbled back down to 30,000 PH/s (30,000,000 TH/s), along with its price dropping to $3,200.
Source: Bitcoin hash rate https://www.blockchain.com/charts/hash-rate?timespan=2years
The sharp and sudden drop in hash power and difficulty provided an opportunity for the strongest miners and new investors to take action and position themselves to lock in massive gains in the eventual upturn in hash rate and the price of Bitcoin. It’s a win-win for those who made timely moves.
Source: Bitcoin mining difficulty https://www.blockchain.com/charts/difficulty
Fast-forward to the time of writing, and Bitcoin’s network is secured by more hash power than ever, with a MASSIVE ATH of 80,000 PH/s (80,000,000 TH/s)!
This dwarfs all other PoW cryptocurrencies in this regard. Since our last hash power report, both Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash are down in hash rate.
In late 2018, Ethereum’s hash rate was 260 TH/s. At the time of writing, it is around 170 TH/s. Bitcoin Cash’s hash rate was 4,000-5,000 PH/s, and it now stands at approximately 2,000 PH/s.
Although the decline for altcoin hash rate has been ongoing since the price crash of 2017/2018, it’s now a different story for Litecoin. In September of 2018, its hash rate was 250 TH/s. It now stands at 400 TH/s, with recent highs of 600 TH/s.
Source: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/hashrate-eth-ltc.html#1y
As another interesting point of insight for fans of Bitcoin Satoshi Vison (BSV), according to stats generated by coin.dance, BSV’s hash rate is also on the rise and closing in on Bitcoin Cash!
Source: The three visions of “Bitcoin” https://coin.dance/blocks/hashrate
Has the hash war truly ended between BCH and BSV? Source: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/hashrate-bch-bsv-btg.html#1y
DISCLAIMER: Any of these stats can change at any moment. Miners can switch from one blockchain to another based on how profitable each respective cryptocurrency is to mine, and each cryptocurrency has its own internal events that can impact its ecosystem.
More Hashes, More Bitcoin!
Hash rate is a term used to measure the speed of the machines working on solving and obtaining an alphanumeric piece of data using the Proof-of-Work algorithm (PoW). For obtaining this long sequence of letters and numbers, miners are rewarded with Bitcoin or whichever cryptocurrency they are choosing to mine. Note that not all cryptocurrencies are mineable.
Think of the mining sequence like rolling a dice millions of times per second trying to guess a number. The greater the hashes a machine can generate or the more dice rolls per second, the greater chance it has of guessing that critical number and enabling the miner to make profit. It’s calculated as follows:
1 KH/s is 1,000 (one thousand) hashes per second.
1 MH/s is 1,000,000 (one million) hashes per second.
1 GH/s is 1,000,000,000 (one billion) hashes per second.
1 TH/s is 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) hashes per second.
1 PH/s is 1,000,000,000,000,000 (one quadrillion) hashes per second.
1 EH/s is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (one quintillion) hashes per second.
1 ZH/s is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (one sextillion) hashes per second.
Everyone wants to mine Bitcoin! The bear market of 2018 provided amazing opportunities, and those with the will to take action are now in a strong position. We are now less than a year away from the anticipated Bitcoin halving event, a critical event where the new supply is reduced by 50%. This alone could trigger a historic digital gold rush on Bitcoin and likely cause the crypto mining space to explode!
This is not investment advice; please always do thorough research and only invest what you are willing to lose, especially in times of uncertainty.