Bitcoin hash rate hits new milestone with miner at one-year low
Bitcoin (BTC) sees new records in network activity as volatility sends BTC price action to new five-month highs.
Data from resources including MiningPoolStats confirms that Bitcoin’s hash rate reached new all-time highs on January 26.
Hash rate passes 300 EH/s threshold
In another example of Bitcoin’s lightning recovery from the pits of post-FTX woes, network hashing power is now greater than ever.
Hash rate, which is an expression of the processing power dedicated to the network of miners, is currently at 321 exahashes-per-second (EH/s), according to raw data from MiningPoolStats.
Despite being only an estimate and impossible to measure completely accurately, the latest readings are quite good, having never passed the 300 EH/s level before.
The mining company Braiins likewise confirmed the numbers in the live reporting feed.
Other trackers from BTC.com and Blockchain.com have slightly lower estimates, both around 275 EH/s on the day. The latter shows the hash rate reaching an all-time high of 276.8 EH/s on January 20.
“Your wealth is more secure than ever!” popular commentator BTC Archive wrote in part of a Twitter response to the data, suggesting improving sentiment across the Bitcoin space.
Hash rate is a key component of Bitcoin security, and significant drawdowns cause network problems to increase to entice more miners to participate.
Network difficulty is also set to reach levels never seen before this week in a nod to fierce competition in the mining sector.
According to data from BTC.com, the next automated readjustment will send difficulty an estimated 2.75% higher to 38.62 trillion.
The previous realignment saw a 10.26% gain, Bitcoin’s biggest since October 2022 and only the second double-digit gain since mid-2021.
Miners get the chance to balance books
Analyzing the climate, CoinLupin, a contributor to on-chain data platform CryptoQuant, warned that miners are still selling their BTC reserves, possibly to shore up capital in the event of a market reversal.
Related: Bitcoin Faces ‘Significant Danger’ From Fed in 2023 – Lyn Alden
“Now they have improved profitability for the first time in a long time, and mining costs are lower than Bitcoin prices. Normally, more active mining and holding might occur, but now they seem to see it as an opportunity to secure cash,” he wrote in a blog post, describing the reserves as “dwindling at a rapid” pace.
“One day price correction can happen in the part where they get enough money and start collecting Bitcoin again. They keep reducing their Bitcoin holdings during the upswing.”
CryptoQuant’s Miner Position Index, which measures BTC outflows to exchanges from miner wallets relative to their one-year moving average, has captured several withdrawal peaks since January 14.
At 1,837,138 BTC, miners’ reserves are currently at their lowest since December 2021.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
