Bitcoin’s Hashrate Soars to Record 549 EH/s in Early 2024 Amidst Increasing Difficulty and Lower Hash Price
As the first week of 2024 came to a close, Bitcoin’s hashrate achieved an all-time high on January 6th, reaching an unprecedented 549 exahashes per second (EH/s). Although the hashrate experienced a slight dip after December 25th, 2023, falling from 546 EH/s to a low of 510 EH/s, it quickly rebounded due to a declining hash price and an increase in difficulty.
The seven-day average hashrate for Bitcoin hit a new peak on January 6th, 2024, reaching 549 EH/s. This milestone surpassed the previous record set on Christmas Day, December 25th, 2023, when it reached 546 EH/s. To put it into perspective, 549 EH/s is equivalent to 549 quintillion hashes per second (H/s) or 0.549 zettahashes per second (ZH/s). One zettahash represents 1,000 EH/s or 1,000,000 petahashes per second (PH/s).
At present, the three-day simple moving average (SMA) indicates that the hashrate peaked at 565 EH/s. However, on December 25th, the same SMA recorded a superior high of 580 EH/s. As of January 7th, 2024, there are exactly 50 mining pools actively contributing hashrate to the Bitcoin network, with Foundry USA leading the way according to three-day SMA data.
Over the past three days, Foundry has dominated with 26.93% of the hashrate, delivering 141.59 EH/s. Antpool closely follows, contributing 139.13 EH/s and securing 26.46% of the overall hashrate. Trailing behind are F2pool, Viabtc, Binance Pool, and Marathon’s Mara Pool. This surge in hashrate coincides with a decrease in the hash price per petahash per second (PH/s) value and a recent 1.65% increase in difficulty.
Despite the impressive hashrate, projections suggest a potential decrease ranging from 1.59% to 8.5% due to slower block intervals compared to the expected 10-minute average. Recent blocks have been recorded between 10 minutes and 32 seconds to 10 minutes and 55 seconds. There are less than 1,800 blocks remaining until the next retarget scheduled for January 19th, 2024.
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