Quick profits: Bitcoin hashing speeds up as mining difficulty hits record high

The Bitcoin network hashrate has been operating at very high processing speeds over the past few weeks as the overall hashrate hit a whopping 171.2 exhash per second (EH / s) on Monday. In addition, the difficulty in mining the network also reached an all-time high (ATH) of 20.61 trillion, the biggest difficulty the network has ever experienced in the past 12 years.

The hashrate is an aspect of the Bitcoin (BTC) network that people look at to measure the overall health and growth of the protocol. At the time of publication, the BTC hash is being processed at speeds of around 165.38 EH / s and the miner’s collective hash power has once again reached all-time highs. For example, on December 30, 2020, the network hash hit a colossal 178.6 EH / s and 12 days later the hash hit 171.2 EH / s.

What surpassed his ATH is the difficulty or difficulty adjustment (DAA) algorithm of BTC’s network mining. This week, the mining difficulty is the highest the difficulty has ever experienced in Bitcoin’s life to date. After the sharp drop in prices on Monday and the accelerated hashrate on the same day, the protocol pushed the mining difficulty to 20.61T.

Because the hashrate is so high entering the second week of January 2021, the Bitcoin network difficulty will increase by + 9.98% or 22.66T, another ATH in less than two weeks. This will take place in about nine days from now, roughly, based on the average block production per day.

The BTC hashrate has grown a lot over the years, as the entire network hashrate was only one exahash per second in January 2016. On May 8, 2017, news.Bitcoin.com reported on the BTC network hashrate affecting 4,216 .797.036 GH / s or more than 4 EH / s. Since then and in the bear market of 2018 and 2019, the Bitcoin hashrate has risen by over 3,700%.

Prior to May’s block reward halving, bitcoin miners received 12.5 BTC per block found, but these days a bitcoin mining pool only receives 6.25 BTC per block of reward. Today’s 165 pe / s is the aggregate hashrate of all 18 bitcoin mining pools implementing the “work” of the SHA256 “proof of work” consensus algorithm.

With a block reward found every ten minutes or so, the Bitcoin block inflation rate per year is only 1.78% in the first month of 2021. So far, even with the price falling. of BTC this week, miners are still profiting a lot by dedicating hashrate to the chain. Statistics show, even at $ 0.12 per kilowatt hour (kWh), more than 200 application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) devices that process the SHA256 algorithm are benefiting today.

Bitcoin supporters are quite confident about the overall hashrate and security of the cryptocurrency network. In a thread on BTC trust, bitcoiner Pierre Rochard Explain that if people are “confident about the fundamentals of Bitcoin, then exchange rate volatility is right – a happy tune.”

Rochard too said:

Confidence in the ability to send bitcoin. Bitcoin’s global peer-to-peer node network and massive mining hash ensure your bitcoin gets to where you send it without foreign interference.

Meanwhile, a number of dominant cryptocurrency exchanges are joining the mining industry. On Wednesday, journalist Colin Wu (@Wublockchain) explained how Huobi enters the mining economy. “China’s largest exchange Huobi is about to start selling BTC mining machinery,” Wu said.

“Investors can buy machines + custody services. The lockout period is two years. Chinese stock markets penetrate more into the mining sector. The Binance mining pool, which was launched in 2020, was once ranked second in the total BTC network, surpassing a large number of traditional mining pools, ”the Chinese financial reporter added.

What do you think of the increase in Bitcoin’s hashrate and the unprecedented difficulty? Let us know what you think of this topic in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/hashrate-chart, Btc.com,