The Bitcoin network has achieved an all-time high of 540 exhashed transactions per second; however, profits are once again declining.
On Christmas Day, the mining hash rate, or computing power, of the Bitcoin network attained a new all-time high. However, this has increased the pressure on miners amid a decline in profitability.
Blockchain.com said Bitcoin’s hash rate peaked at 544 exahashes per second (EH/s) on December 25. Bitinfocharts, which documented an average hash rate apex over the weekend, corroborated the data. Since January, network hash rates have increased by 130%, more than doubling this year.
The asset’s price has nearly mirrored the BTC hash rate increase during the same period, increasing by over 150% since January 1, 2023.
Will Clemente, co-founder of Reflexivity Research, examined the hash rate on a logarithmic scale and remarked, “The summer 2021 China mining ban is barely a blip,” said Clemente. “Imagine fading the most secure decentralized open-source monetary network on the planet, couldn’t be me.”
While theoretical price models, such as the implied hash-adjusted price, may benefit from a high hash rate, miners are compelled to exert greater effort to secure the subsequent block.
The profitability metric, hash price, has decreased over the past week due to the waning interest in the BRC-20 ordinal inscription mania. The current hash rate per second is $0.09 per terahash, as reported by HashrateIndex.
Profitability has decreased by 34% since its peak of $0.136/TH/s/day on December 17, 2023. Significant demand increases frequently result in increased hash prices and transaction fees, as was the case during the recent stampede for inscriptions.
“We’re approaching almost an entire year without fully clearing Bitcoin mempools, having sustained elevated fee pressure since Feb,” observed Glassnode analyst “Checkmatey.”
One month of Bitcoin hash price ($/TH/s/day). Hashrateindex Network hash rates surpassed the 500 EH/s threshold for the first time in late November, according to report.
