However, with prices rebonding, the following six weeks saw hash rate gain 90% – with analysts speculating that a combination of rising crypto prices and the impending obcelense of many older ASICs amid the halving have contributed to hash power nearly doubling in less than two months.
After the mid-March price crash led to a brief exodus of miners operating older hardware, the Bitcoin hash rate posted a new all-time high (ATH) of more than 142 exahashes per second (EX/s) on March 3.
The new record beats out the previous ATH of 123 EX/s posted on March 8.
BTC hash rate tags new record 8 days from halving
With Bitcoin’s third halving event roughly three weeks away, the BTC mining hash rate is against pushing into record highs.
BTC hashing power crashed 40% in two weeks after setting its previous ATH on March 8, dropping from 123 EX/s to just 75 EX/s.
Halving is a ‘healthy rebalance’
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Johnson Xu, the head of research and analytics at TokenInsight, predicted that “a large percentage of older generation miners such as S9s will be shut down” shortly after the halving transpires.
Despite the disruptions the event has on the mining sector, Johnson describes the halving as “a healthy rebalance to force the network to re-adjust itself into an efficient network where miners can make sufficient margin.”
“The bitcoin halving will result in the network in short term chaos, however, once the difficulty adjustment kicks in and self-adjust to an equilibrium state, we will see the bitcoin network back to a stable position quickly”, Johnson added.
Bitcoin Hash Rate Hits New All-Time High as Miners Shun Price Drop
Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high in terms of hash rate despite dropping almost 12% last week, data suggests.
According to various resources tracking hash rate growth on the Bitcoin network, the metric was circling its highest value ever as of March 1.
Bitcoin network hits up to 136 quintillion hashes per second
Hash rate refers to the combined computing power that miners are dedicating to validating transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. The higher the value, the more power there is – this implies that miners believe in the profitability of mining, and have a desire to increase network security.
Data from monitoring resource Bitinfocharts put Bitcoin’s hash rate at just over 120 quintillion hashes per second on Sunday, the latest day for which figures are currently available.
Another monitor, from wallet provider Blockchain, put the figure at closer to 140 quintillion hashes per second after picking up a spike in activity over the weekend.
Bitcoin 1-year hash rate chart
As Cointelegraph reported, hash rate tools can only estimate activity. In 2019, what many thought was a sudden drop in hash rate was subsequently shown not to be miners exiting Bitcoin.
Analysts await halving flashpoint
In May, when the new Bitcoins released to miners each block will halve from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC, expectations are high that increased competition will boost hash rate still further.
PlanB, the analyst who created the highly-accurate stock-to-flow price forecasting model for Bitcoin, recently reinforced his belief in the theory.
For him, the 2020 halving will produce similar effects to the 2012 and 2016 events – a catalytic impact on hash rate, difficulty and, of course, price.
