In the first week of the new year, bitcoin’s hashrate hit an all-time high (ATH) of 770,709 blocks on January 6, 2023. The network recorded a milestone of about 361.20 exahashes per second (EH/s) on Friday, a jump of more than 4% from the previous record of 347.16 EH/s set on November 12, 2022.
The network’s hashpower soars to new highs, difficulty change expected in eight days
Bitcoin’s computing power is heating up in the first week of the new year as it breaks its first record in 2023. According to statistics as of January 7, Bitcoin hashrate is currently rising at 290 EH/s ( ATH ) after hitting an all-time high the day before. The ATH occurred on January 6th at 15:42 ET at a block height of 770,709 blocks, when the network’s total hash power reached 361.20 EH/s. This record is equal to 0.3611999 zettahas per second (ZH/s), or about 361.2 quintillion hashes per second.
The record set on January 6 was more than 4% higher than the record set on November 12, 2022, at around 347.16 EH/s, printed at a block height of 762,845. Because the hashrate is so high, the block generation times were much faster than the average of 10 minutes. Statistics show that the current block intervals (the time between mine blocks) were between 8:51 and 7:31 minutes. The data also shows that the cost of producing BTC is falling. Figures from Macromicro.me show that the cost of bitcoin production is $16,568 per unit, while the spot price is $16,920 per unit.
Statistics from Theminermag.com show that the cost of bitcoin production may be even lower, as the web portal shows an average of about $13,600 per unit. Faster block intervals will mean the network’s difficulty will increase on or around January 16, 2023, after a 3.59% drop on the second day of the year. Current estimates for the change in difficulty over eight days range from 7.04% to a record 13.2% increase. On October 10, 2022, there was an increase of 13.55%, which was the biggest increase of the year.
As of January 7, 2023, three-day statistics show that Foundry USA is the top mining pool with 29.34% of the world’s total hashrate, or about 78.85 EH/s hashpower. Foundry is followed by Antpool (20.04%), F2pool (16.74%), Viabtc (9.71%) and Binance Pool (7.85%), respectively. The network’s record-breaking processing power indicates that Bitcoin’s blockchain is getting stronger, which is seen as a positive sign for the overall health of the Bitcoin network. However, as mentioned above, it may also affect the difficulty of mining new blocks after the difficulty change on January 16th for eight days.
What do you think about the possibility of Bitcoin’s hashrate rising to new highs and a record difficulty change in eight days? Let us know your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.
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