5 September, 2024
Bitcoin Hashrate Approaches All-Time Peak Despite Difficulty Increase and Revenue Loss
Despite increasing mining difficulty and falling hash prices, Bitcoin’s total hash rate is still rising. In fact, on Wednesday, it was just 12 EH/s away from its peak of 677 EH/s set on July 25.
Bitcoin’s hashrate approaches all-time peak despite rising difficulty and lost revenue
Bitcoin mining advances amid low hash price, near record hash rate
On August 28, 2024, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased by 2.99%, from 86.87 trillion to 89.47 trillion, making it more difficult for miners to discover blocks. Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin has fallen 1.5% over the past week, despite a brief uptick on September 4.
At the same time, miners are still facing low incomes, with their output currently worth $41.69 per hash per day (PH/s). However, this is a significant improvement from the daily price per hash of $35.78 on August 5, a decrease of 16.51%.
Despite the low wages faced by Bitcoin miners and near-record difficulty levels, the industry’s hash output is still staggering. As of 2pm ET on Wednesday, the total hash rate was 665 EH/s, just 12 EH/s below the historical peak.
Bitcoin hash rate near all-time peak despite increasing difficulty and falling revenue Bitcoin hash rate is at a seven-day simple moving average on September 4, 2024, according to Luxor’s hashrateindex.com.
If Bitcoin prices improve over the next week, the hash rate could easily surpass the record set on July 25. However, rising hash rates and faster block intervals may trigger another difficulty adjustment increase expected on September 11, 2024.
As of 2 PM ET on September 4, the difficulty is expected to increase by 2.2%, though that may change over the next five and a half days. Of the 665 EH/s recorded on Wednesday, Foundry contributed 201.25 EH/s, while Antpool had 167.47 EH/s of SHA256 hashing power.
On the afternoon of September 4th, there were approximately 55 recognized mining pools powering the Bitcoin blockchain. The rise in hash rate suggests miners are holding on despite the recent revenue decline, due to several key buffering factors.
These include heavy fees being charged on the day of the fourth halving, newly released cutting-edge mining equipment delivering impressive terahashes per second (TH/s), and stock sales in publicly traded mining companies. The real question is, if the downturn continues, how long can these buffers sustain Bitcoin mining operations?
