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- The Bitcoin blockchain hashing rate has hit an all-time high in the midst of a massive financial crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak.
- Blockchain.info puts the hash rate estimate at just shy of 140 quintillion hashes per second.
- Bitcoin’s hash rate is further expected to see massive jumps after the long-awaited bitcoin halving in May.
The Bitcoin blockchain hashing rate has hit an all-time high in the midst of a massive financial crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak. Hash rate currently sits at 136 quintillion hashes per second, and the massive milestone was crossed on March 1st despite experiencing declines of nearly 12% during the last week of February.
Cryptocurrency network analysis website BitInfoCharts reported Bitcoin crossing 120 quintillion hashes per second, an all-time-high on March 1st, and it has been growing since. Another analysis source, Blockchain.info, puts the hash rate estimate at just shy of 140 quintillion hashes per second.
This is a surprising turn of events as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency’s network was facing a decreased hash rate of nearly 12%, from 113 quintillion hashes per second on February 25th to 106 quintillion hashes per second on February 26th. But the network picked back up quickly the very next day and began climbing to the current high.
The entire financial market has been taking a hit due to the coronavirus outbreak, with Wall Street even seeing the worst numbers since the 2008 financial crises. The stock markets have been down, and the prices of major brands like Apple and Disney have taken a strong hit too. The fact that bitcoin’s prices have picked up during this dull period is a good indicator of the network’s usage and adoption.
Bitcoin’s hash rate is further expected to see massive jumps after the long-awaited bitcoin halving in May when the mining reward will get cut from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block. Which will result in higher mining competition contributed to a higher hash rate.
Bitcoin’s hash rate is a representation of the number of cryptographic hashes that miners try to “mine” in order to lock down a block and make it immutable and link it to the rest of the blockchain. Bitcoin has a mining difficulty that is constantly varied by the network in order to make sure a new block is hashed and added to the blockchain every 10 minutes.
Therefore an increase in the network hash rate signifies that the mining difficulty is increasing. Bitcoin itself has had a dull couple weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak, hitting lows of $8,530 per coin during the last week of February.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
