Since its crash in response to China’s crypto mining crackdown earlier this year, the hashrate has seen remarkable recovery.
The Bitcoin hashrate has now topped 150 Exahashes, or one quintillion hashes, per second according to data from analytics provider CryptoQuant.
The metrics provider reported that Aug. 24 saw a hashrate reading of 152 EH/s. This has tripled its value since June 28, when it was 52 EH/s.
BTC hashrate was recovered, meaning that the network is now much safer and more difficult to attack.
The average Bitcoin hashrate — the amount of computing power in the network — hit an all-time high of 197.6 EH/s on May 13 according to Bitinfocharts. It plummeted by more than 65% over the next six weeks as Chinese mining rigs were shut down in preparation for “great miner migration”.
The metric is currently at the early June levels, and, if this trend continues, could reach a new all time high in the next few months.
In early May, Cointelegraph reported that there was already evidence that hashrate was moving away from China. Details on the migration are difficult to come by: Cambridge University’s well-sourced “mining map” has not been updated since April when it reported 65% of the hashrate residing in China.
It is inaccurate to measure hashrate data from a mining pool, as many pools combine hash power from both physical facilities and miners from around the globe pooling computing resources.
It would be an indication that the miner migration has almost completed since the hashrate has recovered. This has resulted in an increase in difficulty, with the last rise of around 7% occurring on Aug. 13. The next one will be due anytime now. This will result in higher computational costs for miners, as more of the previously China-based operations return online to compete for blocks. The current estimate is for a 12.37% difficulty increase.
The migrating operations were not available in June and July. However, miners who already operate in the United States were able make bigger profits because of the lower difficulty.
This week, Cointelegraph reported that U.S. mining firm Riot Blockchain announced record revenue for BTC mining during the second quarter.
