- The Bitcoin hashrate looks to be stabilizing after a 25% drop post-halving
- Downward trend may ave partly been arrested by a 6% mining difficulty drop
- 25% drop is in line with industry expectations
The Bitcoin hashrate seems to be stabilizing after a 25% drop from its pre-halving levels following a 6% adjustment in the mining difficulty rate. Having enjoyed a run up to an all-time hashrate prior to the halving, the anticipated drop looks to be leveling out, meaning that the unprofitable miners are almost all squeezed out. Those still in the game have benefited from a 6% decrease in mining difficulty, the first adjustment since the halving, which has allowed older mining equipment to get a temporary reprieve.
25% Bitcoin Hashrate Drop in Line With Industry Expectations
The Bitcoin hashrate topped out at a pre-halving value of 122 million terahashes per second (TH/s) on May 8 before experiencing a nine-day swan dive that took it down to 93 TH/s. Despite the hashrate continuing down to 90.6 TH/s we have seen two upticks that could suggest the fall has been arrested and is about to sow the seeds of a recovery:
Source: Blockchain.com
The 25% Bitcoin hashrate drop is bang in line with the prediction of Peter Wall, CEO of mining outfit Argo Blockchain, who told FullyCrypto that he was anticipating a drop such as this:
We’re not at all surprised – our team expected this drop in both the network hashrate and mining difficulty as miners with older hardware and/or inefficient operations are being “shaken out” of the market. After the next difficulty adjustment in roughly 9 days, we expect the hashrate and difficulty to be in close sync with the price for the upcoming weeks and months.
Mining Difficulty Drops 6%
The recent upticks coincide with the first difficulty adjustment since the halving, which decreased from 16.1 trillion to 15.14 trillion, roughly a 6% drop, offering those miners that have survived the halving a little respite. A decrease in difficulty means it is easier for miners to mine blocks on the Bitcoin network, which then makes some older mining equipment profitable again, albeit temporarily.
Miners must balance outside factors such as the difficulty level and the Bitcoin price with operational costs to work out which mining equipment to use in order to maximize their earnings and make the most out of older equipment.
