New historic record for the Bitcoin hashrate

Today, for the first time in history, Bitcoin’s hashrate exceeded 300 Ehash/s. 

This was revealed by CoinWarz, even though it is only an estimate. 

Indeed, it is impossible to accurately calculate the Bitcoin mining hashrate globally, but it is possible to estimate it using difficulty and average block-time as reference points. 

Hashrate of Bitcoin mining reaches a new record high

Although there are many different estimates, there are several that claim that today, for the first time in Bitcoin’s entire history, there was a peak hourly hashrate above 300 Ehash/s. 

Already between 1 and 2 October, there had been peaks at over 295 Ehash/s, but never in history had it been estimated that even 300 had been exceeded. 

It is worth noting that it has now been since 19 August that the average Bitcoin mining hashrate has continued to rise, well above the 257 Ehash/s of the previous all-time high. 

Taking daily estimates instead of hourly ones, from 253 Ehash/s on 8 June it had dropped to 170 on 14 July and then found itself at 182 as of 18 August. 

The curious thing is that on 19 August there was a sharp drop in the value of BTC, which went from $23,000 to $21,000 in a single day, marking the beginning of the difficult period that lasts to this day. 

Yet, despite the drop and the beginning of a long phase of downward lateralization, on 19 August the hashrate rose to 228 Ehash/s, and then rose to 264 Ehash/s on 4 September. 

As many as four daily peaks have occurred since then, the latest of which occurred yesterday. 

Hashrate estimation does not give consistent results, so over the past month, it has ranged from 200 to 270, with today’s hourly peak over 300 Ehash/s. 

Taking the daily average shows that during September it remained fairly constant, whereas it had increased significantly during the last two weeks of August. 

A new increase began on 1 October, with as many as three new all-time highs being recorded in just five days. 

The relationship between the hashrate and the price of BTC

However, since the value of BTC does not increase, and miner earnings are in Bitcoin and more or less fixed, an increase in hashrate also means an increase in the competitiveness of the industry, resulting in reduced profitability. Not least because an increase in hashrate often also means an increase in the costs of hash mining. 

Bitcoin mining profitability has fallen to its lowest since October 2020, which is just before the great bullrun of 2021 was triggered. 

Suffice it to say that in May, after the implosion of the Terra ecosystem, the average profitability of Bitcoin mining still hovered around $0.118 per day per Thash/s, while it has now plummeted to $0.07. 

At the beginning of the year, it was at $0.253, while by the end of April it had dropped to $0.170. 

Such low profitability seems to indicate that Bitcoin miners at this time are not mining in order to then immediately sell the BTC they cash in, but more likely that they are mining it in order to store it for better times. Indeed, in light of these dynamics, there are those who believe it is possible that a new bullrun is about to be triggered.