As Bitcoin's (BTC) price continues to remain at $30,000, there have been certain changes in the data which have gone far beyond the BTC price action in the year 2023. The data includes Bitcoin's mining difficulty and hash rate which have continued to reach new all-time highs. This has been a major advantage for the miners in the current situation as the bear market had completely put the mining profit margins to the brink of zero.
The mining difficulty reflects the competition for the block subsidies. It has fetched an all-time high for the past two months and it is projected that the difficulty will increase by approximately 2.1% on April 20 and will reach 48.91 trillion. This is a massive 13 trillion increase since the beginning of the year. Apart from this, the Bitcoin network hash rate is also at its all-time high with the raw data from MiningPoolStats registering 418 exahashes (EH/s) per second on April 18.
Russia has contributed to the increase in the hash rate of the Bitcoin network by increasing its mining activity over the past year. Reports suggest that it is now the world’s second-largest miner in the world in 2023. This has led to certain concerns that a majority hash rate share by the government could pressurize miners to censure transactions. However, other opinion suggests that the real “danger” is using the hash rate to earn a revenue in form of Bitcoin. Pierre Rochard, Vice President of Research at Riot Platforms mentioned that adversaries using hash rate to censor BTC transactions is a distraction from adversaries actually using the hash rate to earn BTC revenue.
Current miner balance data reveals that there has been an increase in BTC sales in a rolling 30-day basis. On April 18, miners cut their Bitcoin holding by 648 BTC compared to the same date one month ago. The decrease in Bitcoin holding is comparatively different from the one experienced during the FTX implosion of Q4 2020.
All in all, changes in the data clearly reflect that the fundamental aspects of the Bitcoin network such as difficulty and hash rate are performing way beyond expectations and the Bitcoin recovery of 2023 has enabled miners to make a stellar comeback by receiving benefits from Bitcoin related indicators.
Victoria Lopez
- 2023-04-19
Has the Bitcoin Hash Rate Reached an All-Time High in 2023?
Bitcoin data such as the mining difficulty and hash rate have been reaching new all-time highs since the beginning of 2023. This has been a great prospect for miners even though the bear market had rendered their profit margins to zero.
