As the highly anticipated block reward halving approaches, bitcoin miners have made significant strides in increasing their hashrate. With only 72 blocks remaining until block height 840,000, the miners are determined to maximize their rewards before they are halved. As of 8:50 a.m. EDT on April 19, 2024, the hashrate has soared to an all-time high of 653 exahash per second (EH/s).
This surge in hashrate comes just hours before Bitcoin’s fourth halving, surpassing the previous record by 12 EH/s, which was set just a week ago.
Despite facing challenges such as a spike in mining difficulty last week and a noticeable decline in price, the hashrate has continued to rise consistently. Experts believe that at its current rate of growth, the hashrate could propel Bitcoin into the zettahash era within this cycle. To put it into perspective, one zettahash per second (ZH/s) is equivalent to 1,000 EH/s or one quintillion kilohash per second (KH/s).
Since the beginning of the year, the total network hashrate has increased from 512 EH/s to 653 EH/s, marking a growth of 141 EH/s in just a few months. In the last three days alone, a total of 438 blocks have been mined, with Foundry USA securing 126 of them.
Foundry currently holds a hashrate of 187.59 EH/s, a significant increase from 140.26 EH/s in January. This translates to an impressive gain of 47.33 EH/s in the past 96 days. Antpool, on the other hand, started the year with a hashrate of 147.40 EH/s and has now grown to 154.84 EH/s, showing a growth of 7.44 EH/s in the same period.
Viabtc’s hashrate currently stands at 89.33 EH/s, up from 68.94 EH/s at the beginning of the year. F2pool experienced a slight dip in hashrate from 74.89 EH/s to 71.46 EH/s. Binance Pool, however, saw a modest increase from 22.58 EH/s to 23.82 EH/s. Mara Pool’s hashrate, unfortunately, decreased from 21.4 EH/s to 19.35 EH/s.
If the hashrate continues on its current trajectory, the network could potentially reach 1 zettahash per second by December 11, 2024. However, the halving and subsequent adjustments in mining difficulty could potentially impact the advancement of the hashrate.
What are your thoughts on the record-breaking hashrate? Share your opinions in the comments section below.
