Bitcoin’s hashrate has once again fallen below the threshold of 600 exahash per second (EH/s), following a brief surge in computational power on May 26. Over the past week, the network’s seven-day simple moving average (SMA) shows a decrease of at least 74 EH/s.
The decline in Bitcoin’s hashrate is significant, considering that just a week ago, according to the seven-day SMA, it reached an all-time high of 656 EH/s. However, as of June 3, the network’s computational power stands at 582 EH/s after dropping by 74 EH/s.
To put this into perspective, if the average mining machine contributes around 200 terahash per second (TH/s) of computational power to the Bitcoin network, a loss of 74 EH/s would mean that approximately 370,000 miners with a capacity of 200 TH/s went offline.
In terms of block intervals, which is the time between each mined block, the past 100 blocks have been very close to the average of ten minutes. The average block interval over the past 100 blocks has been approximately 9 minutes and 55 seconds.
For instance, the block time between block height 846,350 mined by Antpool and block 846,351 discovered by Braiins Pool was about 10 minutes and 21 seconds. The network’s next difficulty retarget is expected on or around June 5, 2024, and based on the average over the past 2,016 blocks, a modest increase is anticipated.
Currently, the network’s hashprice, which represents the expected value of 1 petahash per second (PH/s) of hashing power per day, is valued at $55.63. This is an improvement from the $45 range per petahash but still significantly lower than before the fourth halving event.
Several factors could benefit bitcoin miners, including an increase in BTC’s price per unit. This alone would boost the hashprice, and higher fees would also contribute to their revenue.
However, miners are currently facing challenges due to the decline in BTC’s market value since its all-time high in March and lower fees following the halving. While the expected 1.61% difficulty rise, as estimated by btc.com’s difficulty data page, would not provide much help to miners, it would still be below the all-time high set on April 24.
Although the impact of the hashrate reduction is not fully evident yet, it could temporarily prolong the time required to find the next block since the difficulty remains unchanged initially. This means that if block intervals continue to increase, the expected 1.61% difficulty increase might decrease significantly or even result in an overall decrease in difficulty by June 5.
What are your thoughts on the hashrate drop? Share your opinions and insights on this matter in the comments section below.
