Following the network difficulty change six days ago on September 27, Bitcoin’s hashrate surpassed the 295 exahash per second (EH/s) range two times during the first two days of October. The current network speed is 229 EH/s. Block intervals have exceeded the 10-minute average which suggests another downward difficulty adjustment. With Bitcoin’s mining difficulty looking as though it will reach another all-time high (ATH), the network’s hashrate has increased exponentially from six million hashes per second to the recent two hundred ninety-five quintillion hashes per second.
Bitcoin’s Network Hashrate and Difficulty Continues to Rise
Bitcoin’s computational power is a whole lot stronger than it was 13 years ago. The network’s mining difficulty reached an all-time high just recently on September 13, 2022, at block height 753,984.
The height the mining difficulty reached was approximately 32.05 trillion hashes and it’s a high probability that the network will see an upward adjustment on or around October 11, 2022. According to statistics, the difficulty target could range from 4.22% up to 10.7%.
Despite the lower bitcoin (BTC) U.S. dollar exchange rate and a difficulty that’s close to the ATH, miners have continued to increase their hashpower. In fact, there is no computational network today, that has exponentially risen at the pace the Bitcoin Network’s hashrate has increased during the last decade.
On January 19, 2009, Bitcoin’s hashrate was approximately six million hashes per second (6,290,000) and using the recent 295 EH/s recording, it equates to two hundred ninety-five quintillion hashes per second (295,000,000,000,000,000,000). Those two data points indicate that the network’s hashrate has grown four quadrillion percent higher in 13 years’ time.
The current block time has been lower than the 10-minute average, at 9:01 p.m. at the moment of writing. The block interval between blocks was 7:95 minutes faster on October 1, 2022. Every two weeks, difficulty adjustments are more frequent than in the beginning (pre-2010).
It wasn’t until February 2, 2010, or block height 40,320 that the difficulty rose above 1 hash and by September 18, 2017, at block height 485,856 Bitcoin’s network difficulty rose above 1 trillion hashes for the first time.
Just like the hashrate, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has risen exponentially as well, increasing three quadrillion percent since February 2, 2010, or during the course of the last 4,626 days. As of the writing date, over 756,888 Bitcoin blocks were mined to existence. There are still 1,831,949.98 BTC left to mine.
What do you think about the Bitcoin network’s exponential hashrate growth and the difficulty adjustments in recent times? Please comment below to let us know your thoughts on this topic.
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