Bitcoin hashrate past extraordinary milestone, network continues to grow

The bitcoin price is on a minor resurgence in 2023, volatility is back and activity on the network is also on the rise. With those increases, optimism from the troubled miners is also returning, as the hashrate jumped towards a new all-time high on 26 January, according to MiningPoolStats.

New all-time high

We will probably have to wait a while for the price, but the hashrate thus already reached a new all-time high of 300 exahash per second (EH/s) on 26 January. The hashrate is the amount of computing power contained in the network. At the time of writing, it is 321 EH/s.

https://twitter.com/BraiinsMining/status/1618327727500849152

One exahash is equivalent to one trillion hashes. So per second, the miners together are currently producing 321,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 hashes per second. This already gives you some idea of the computing power currently in the network, which is truly gigantic.

Despite being only an estimate, as it is impossible to determine the hashrate precisely, bitcoin has never gone past 300 EH/s per second. By the way, the meters from BTC.com and Blockchain.com give a slightly different reading, both are still below 300 EH/s.

Tricky for miners

It is nice to see that the hashrate is on the rise again, because that means Bitcoin's network is healthier. On the other hand, this does put pressure on miners again, as they are earning less bitcoin with the existing equipment. In that respect, it will be a double-edged sword for them.

Where the hashrate comes from is hard to say. It could be energy companies, for example, who are using their excess energy to mine bitcoin. That traditional bitcoin miners are struggling is evident from CoinLupin's analysis, which warns that miners are still selling their reserves.

"Now that they are more profitable for the first time in a long time and the cost of mining is lower than the bitcoin price they are taking the opportunity to secure some cash," CoinLupin said in a blog post.
https://www.indexuniverse.eu/bitcoin-hashrate-past-extraordinary-milestone-network-continues-to-grow/