The mining of BTC continues to set record after record: the hashrate has reached its all-time high, as has the difficulty.
Furthermore, an ASIC with computing power exceeding 1 PH/s has also been launched.
New records from BTC mining: the current levels of hashrate
The all-time peak regarding the hourly hashrate of Bitcoin mining was reached last May 30th above 1,100 EH/s, and it was hit a second time yesterday as well.
Given, however, that these data come from calculated estimates, and not from actual measurements, it is advisable to use average data over longer periods (such as the week) rather than hourly data.
The maximum peak of the 7-day moving average was indeed reached on the first of June, above 940 EH/s.
Note that a year ago it barely exceeded 600 EH/s, and in December, when the BTC price exceeded for the first time in its history the $100,000, it barely exceeded 800 EH/s.
It should be remembered that the hashrate increases not only due to the increase in the efficiency of ASICs, but also as a consequence of the increase in the value of BTC, but this effect is seen only after months.
So it’s no surprise that the historical record was set only in June, despite the price being more or less the same as December of last year.
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The difficulty
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The difficulty also reached its all-time high on May 31, at almost 127 T.
A year ago it was below 85 T, and between November and December it had surpassed 100 T for the first time.
The difficulty increases automatically as a result of the increase in hashrate, with the goal of keeping the block-time around 10 minutes.
Therefore, with such an increase in hashrate, it was inevitable that the difficulty would also increase.
The problem for the miners is that an increase in difficulty also increases energy consumption, because it requires the extraction of a greater number of hashes to be able to mine the blocks.
Although the increase in hashrate, necessary to extract more hashes, can be achieved even just by purchasing more efficient machines, generally to obtain it, it is necessary to increase electricity consumption, that is, operating costs, thus reducing the profit margin.
In fact, the estimate of the average profitability of BTC mining has dropped from about $0.06 per day per THash/s at the beginning of the year to the current $0.05. Therefore, with the BTC value remaining the same, the profits of the miners have decreased due to the increase in hashrate.
On the other hand, the hashrate always increases with months of delay compared to the increase in value.
The record of ASICs: greater efficiency in BTC mining
Last month, one of the largest ASIC manufacturers in the world, Bitmain, introduced a new machine capable of exceeding 1 PH/s.
One TH/s (TeraHash per second) is equivalent to one trillion hashes per second.
TH/s is also the unit of measurement generally used to measure the performance of ASICs, but Bitmain’s new machine exceeds 1,000 TH/s, which is more than 1 PH/s.
One PH/s (PetaHash per second) is equivalent to one million billion hashes per second.
Note that these are the units of measurement used for the performance of individual machines used in BTC mining to extract hashes, while to measure the overall hashrate employed globally for BTC mining, EH/S is used.
One EH/s (ExaHash per second) is equivalent to one billion billion hashes per second.
Given that ASICs with computing power greater than 1 PH/s are now on the market, and since it takes just a thousand of these machines working simultaneously to reach 1 EH/s, it is not surprising that hashrate peaks of 1 ZH/s, or greater than a thousand PH/s, have already been reached.
One ZH/s (ZettaHash per second) is equivalent to a thousand billion billion hashes per second.
The recent decline
To tell the truth, in the last week the overall hashrate has slightly decreased.
In fact, with the increase in difficulty from 119 to 127 T from mid-May to today, the estimate of the average profitability of BTC mining has dropped from $0.06 to $0.05 per day per TH/s, and this has certainly led some miners to turn off the less efficient machines.
And so after the peak on the first of June, now the hashrate has dropped to 880 EH/s.
It is, however, a higher value compared to the 840 EH/s reached in mid-May, and much higher compared to the 770 at the end of October, before the latest Bitcoin bull run began.
In other words, net of the medium-short term fluctuations generated by the variations in difficulty, BTC mining still seems to be doing quite well overall.
