It’s Never Been Harder to Mine Bitcoin as Hash Rate Hits New All-Time Highs

According to the new data, the mean hash rate of the Bitcoin (BTC) network reached new peaks as a landmark of recent technical improvements.

Monitoring resource Glassnode shows that on January 7, the mean hash rate hit 119 quintillion hashes per second — the highest ever at the time.

Consensus on BTC hash rate record

Hash rate stands for the amount of computing power used for finding nonces and adding new blocks to the blockchain. The more power is used, the more secure the blockchain is. A high hash rate allows us to suggest that mining is particularly attractive to the users.

Glassnode calculates average hash rate per day. Since it can not be measured exactly, the data includes other estimates confirming that the metric achieved new records in recent weeks or months.

Different statistics indicated the rise of the hash rate, with the highest estimation of 150 quintillion hashes per second last week.

The changes occurred rapidly. According to Glassnode, the mean hash rate low of 36 quintillion hashes per second — which laid foundation for recent growth — occurred in late April 2019.

Difficulty is expected to surge another 6%

In the meantime, this year we have seen numerous sign of Bitcoin’s bullish trend upcoming. Besides hash rate, analysts noted rising activity among Bitcoin futures investors.

Mining difficulty, which had declined before, is now rising. Last week it stepped up 6% and is expected to gain another 6-7% in nine days.

Enthusiasm also revolves around the Bitcoin price, as some commentators predict new all-time high prices this year.