After more than a month of falling, the Bitcoin network hash rate finally looks like it has bottomed out and is starting to record growth. This growth means the mining difficulty will go up, it also means that the price of Bitcoin is getting closer to a price that is viable for efficient and profitable mining.
The hash rate took a nosedive around the time of the Bitcoin Cash hash war, as miners diverted power over to the BCH network in order to take part. However, this left the Bitcoin core hash rate suffering heavy dips. Despite this, miners continued to operate, and with the lower difficulty these miners saw more income from mining – a win, win really.
Mining is Still Profitable
There has been a lot of FUD around crypto mining and fear that miners could all disappear due to the low cost of Bitcoin. However, for any miners that have spent the time setting up properly this isn’t ever going to be something that will happen. Miners can continually turn a huge profit by focusing their mining power on specific blockchains where the difficulty level is in tandem with the price of the tokens. In fact, there are at least three mining rigs that will still run at a huge profit. So, what are you waiting for? Become a miner, as there is still plenty of money to be made.
Better Mining Hardware Coming Up
With Bitmain looking like the Titanic, other hardware manufacturers are stepping up their game. Intel has recently secured a patent to develop and build ultra-powerful crypto mining rigs. These new systems will allow the rigs to perform one calculation to get the next hash rather than calculating millions of hashes. While this could make the difficulty level exponentially higher, it’s worth the risks involved.
The Power Equation
Many news outlets around the world are claiming that Bitcoin is bad for the planet due to the immense amount of power it consumes. When you do the math and boil it down, you quickly realize that running Christmas lights year-round in the US alone would consume an awful lot more power than the Bitcoin network. On top of this, a report has shown that 77.6% of all power used in Bitcoin mining is from renewable sources – something the current banking system can’t boast.
The news that the Bitcoin network hash rate is starting to stabilize comes as welcome news. This means that the price of Bitcoin and the network hash rate have recoupled and are now rising in tandem. It highlights that mining is becoming profitable and will be for the foreseeable future. This hash rate crash was needed to reset the mining world, and now we can move forwards into 2019 on the right foot.
