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The computing power dedicated to the exploitation of bitcoin has reached a new high, suggesting that more than 600,000 new powerful machines would have come online in the last three months.
According to data from the crypto-extraction pool BTC.com, the two-week average hash bitcoin rate crossed another important threshold, reaching 85 exahashes per second (EH / s) around 19:00 UTC last Friday. Meanwhile, the mining difficulty has also adjusted to a new record of nearly $ 12 trillion.
Both figures have jumped 60% since June 14.
The mining difficulty of Bitcoin – a measure of the difficulty of creating a block of transactions – adjusts after 2,016 blocks, approximately every two weeks. This ensures that the time required to produce a block remains around 10 minutes, even if the amount of hash power, deployed by machines around the world competing to earn freshly struck bitcoins, fluctuates.
Several new application – specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining models have arrived on the market over the summer, with average hashing power of about 55 tera per second (TH / s).
Assuming that all 35 EH / s of new hash power added since mid-June come from these high-end models, a backward calculation suggests that more than half a million of these machines are connected to the bitcoin network. (1 EH / s = 1 million TH / s)
Business in billions of dollars?
These powerful ASICs, manufactured by major manufacturers such as Bitmain, Canaan, InnoSilicon and MicroBT, cost between $ 1,500 and $ 2,500 each. Thus, if more than half a million of them were delivered, as estimated above, the major mineral manufacturers would have achieved a billion dollar business turnover. during the last three months.
The hash rate and the difficulties of Bitcoin correspond to the soaring prices since the beginning of the year, which has led to an increasing demand for mining equipment which has largely exceeded supply. This is also partly due to the summer rainy season in southwestern China, which has produced abundant and cheap hydropower.
In addition, the region of Eastern Siberia in Russia is attracting increasing interest, where the Bretsk hydroelectric plant built during the Cold War has been used to supply mining operations that account for almost 10% of the total computing power of the country. bitcoin. network.
Miners in China estimated earlier this year that the average bitcoin hashing rate in summer would exceed the 70 EH / s level reached in August.
As a result, major manufacturers of miners have already sold equipment that must be shipped until the end of the year, with customers placing pre-orders three months in advance.
TokenInsight, a startup that focuses on analyzing crypto trading and mining activities, said in a report released Friday that new supplies of miners are expected to hit the market in the coming months.
"Following the sharp rise in the price of bitcoin, the bitcoin mining market experienced significant inflation in the second quarter of 2019. Most miners from different manufacturers were in serious short supply and pre-orders submitted in the second and third quarters are expected to be delivered. 39, here the end of the year. , "Indicates the report.
As a result, the company estimates that the mining difficulties will maintain their growth momentum to reach 15,000 billion by the end of the year – the average total bitchoin hash power crossing the threshold of 100 EH / s for the first time in its history.
Image of Bitcoin Mining Facility with kind permission of Bcause
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