After a brief slowdown in May, the Bitcoin network’s hash rate has rebounded to new all-time highs. In total, miners are now producing an average of 258 exahashes per second (EH/s), per day.
- According to public hash rate data, the average daily hash rate has spiked by 4.41% in the past 24 hours alone. Just one week ago, the hash rate dwelled as low as 188 EH/s – in other words, 188 quintillion hashes.
- The previous hash rate record was set on May 2nd at 251 EH/s, after which it began to drop off. The fall coincided with May’s crypto market crash that saw hundreds of billions of dollars wiped off the market, and a top ten cryptocurrency crumble to worthlessness.
- Price and hash rate share a logical connection. As Bitcoin’s price falls, Bitcoin miners are less incentivized to consume the energy required to produce hashes.
- Hashes are independent guess answers to the cryptographic problem required to create each Bitcoin block. When a correct hash is found and a block is created, the “miner” earns a reward of 6.25 Bitcoin, and collects the block’s transaction fees.
- As the hash rate increases, Bitcoin’s difficulty algorithm rises so that each block takes approximately 10 minutes to mine.
- This process for creating blocks follows a consensus mechanism called “proof of work,” due to the energy or “work” that goes into securing the network.
- Ethereum also operates by this method, but is planning to transition to a mechanism called “proof of stake”. This will theoretically reduce the network’s energy footprint, and increase scalability.
- Bitcoin currently consumes an estimated 125 terawatt-hours of electricity each year, according to Cambridge’s index. That’s vastly more than any other crypto network – and even some countries, such as Finland.