Hashrate goes up as Bitcoin price goes down
- Bitcoin hash rate hit the new all-time high despite the price decrease.
- The growing mining difficulty makes the mining business unprofitable.
Bitcoin hash rate has settled above 100 EH/s and hit another record high at 114 EH/s despite the collapsing market., according to the data from blockchain.info.
Notably, the aggregate mining difficulty is growing even though the most popular miners Antminer S9 are operating at a loss when the cost of electricity is higher than $0.06 kWh.
"S9 is technically shut down now at $0.06/KWh (And this is not counting operating cost and all other misc cost)," Dovey Wan (@DoveyWan) noted on her Twitter.
Meanwhile, these devices are responsible for about 50% of the total bitcoin hash rate.
Also, it is worth noting, that bitcoin's hashrate has been growing even despite the price decrease. The so-called crypto winter of 2018 did not stop the metric from its stellar growth.
The Chinese manufacturer of cryptocurrency mining equipment Bitmain finished the construction of a large mining center in Texas. The new facility is expected to operate with a power capacity of 50 MW.
While the growing hash rate may indicate that the network is more secure and more resistant to 51% attack, it may be a double edge sword as it raises concerns about its long-term sustainability.
Author
Tanya Abrosimova
Independent Analyst
