Blocks

Following BTC’s Price Drop, Bitcoin Miners Benefit From a 2.35% Difficulty Reduction

22/06/2022 by Idelto Editor

During the past week, Bitcoin’s hashrate has dropped a few percentages after reaching 288 exahash per second (EH/s) on June 8, 2022. Bitcoin miners, however, got a break on Wednesday, June 22, as the mining difficulty dropped by 2.35% making it easier for miners to find blocks. The 2.35% drop brings the difficulty down to the 29.50 trillion range for the next two weeks.

Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Drops 2.35%

On Wednesday, June 22, at block height 741,888, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty decreased 2.35% lower than two weeks ago. At that time, the difficulty rating was 30.28 trillion and today it is 29.50 trillion. Furthermore, bitcoin’s fiat value dropped to a low of $17,593 on June 18.
Essentially, Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) shifts every 2016 blocks and the changes are based on the amount of time it took to find the previous 2016 block subsidies. The difficulty is meant to keep block times consistent at roughly 10 minutes in between each BTC block found.
The last difficulty change at block height 739,872, two weeks ago, increased by 1.29%. That means the previous 2016 blocks before block height 739,872 took less than two weeks to find, which means miners were faster during the period. This means while the DAA shift dropped by 2.35% today, the previous 2016 blocks were found at a much slower rate.
A 2.35% reduction makes it 2.35% easier to find BTC blocks than it was during the past two weeks or 2016 blocks found. BTC’s block reward halving is expected to occur on April 23, 2024, and is less than 100,000 blocks away.
While the hashrate tapped 288 EH/s on June 8, the network’s hashrate dipped during the crypto market rout and it hit a low of 164 EH/s on June 18. At the time of writing on Wednesday, June 22, the hashrate is coasting along at speeds just below 200 EH/s.
Over the last three days, the top five BTC mining pools include Foundry USA, F2pool, Antpool, Poolin, and Viabtc. The aforementioned five BTC mining pools command 72.8% of the global hashrate today.

During the last month, 4,271 BTC blocks were mined into existence and Foundry discovered 959 of those blocks. Antpool found 636, F2pool discovered 591, Poolin found 457, and Viabtc found 434 bitcoin (BTC) block rewards.
Over the next two weeks, it will be 2.35% easier to find BTC blocks than it was the two weeks before block height 741,888. With the price being lower, miners will benefit from the DAA reduction on Wednesday.

What do you think about Bitcoin’s difficulty reduction on Wednesday afternoon (ET)? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Bitcoin’s Sinking Price Pushes Hashrate Below 200 Exahash, Mining Difficulty Expected to Slide 2.8% Lower

18/06/2022 by Idelto Editor

While bitcoin’s price dropped below the $20K region, the network’s hashrate slipped under the 200 exahash per second (EH/s) region to 167 EH/s on June 18. At the time of writing, the hashrate is coasting along at 184 EH/s after a slight rebound following the drop. With the price per bitcoin lower this week and the hashrate dropping, bitcoin miners may get a break in four days as the network’s difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) is expected to slide 2.8% lower than today’s current mining difficulty metric.

Bitcoin’s Hashrate Slides Lower Amid Price Drop, DAA Expected to Shift Downward in 4 Days

It is becoming less profitable for bitcoin miners this week as the price of bitcoin (BTC) slid to a low of $18,732 per unit on June 18, 2022. The price of bitcoin has not been this low since December 2020 and the exchange rate has caused the hashrate to slide roughly 15% during the past 24 hours.

The hashrate has not tapped a low of 167 EH/s since the first week of March 2022, as a great majority of the time it remained well above the 200 EH/s zone. At the time of writing, the hashrate is around 184 EH/s or 8% lower than the 200 EH/s region.

Bitcoin’s fiat exchange rate has made it so a great number of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining rigs are currently unprofitable. With electricity costs at $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), only three ASIC devices are profitable today.

Bitmain’s Antminer S19 XP with 140 terahash per second (TH/s) gets an estimated $2.91 in BTC profits per day, while Microbt’s Whatsminer M50S with 126 TH/s gets an estimated $0.99 per day in profit. However, if electrical costs are $0.05 per kWh, then a few dozen ASIC mining rigs that produce 30 TH/s or more can profit.

Eight days ago, bitcoin miners also saw the mining difficulty increase, which makes it harder for miners to find block rewards. The DAA increase combined with the price decline has made it even harder for bitcoin miners to secure profits.

However, with just under 600 blocks left until the next DAA shift on June 22, the difficulty is expected to decrease by 2.8%, which will alleviate some of the pressure miners are facing. Block times on average have been about 10 – 17 minutes and a block reward without fees is around $119,838 at the time of writing.

SHA256-Based Crypto Networks Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoinsv Hashrates Drop

Today, the top five mining pools include Foundry USA, F2pool, Antpool, Binance Pool, and Viabtc, respectively. Foundry is the top mining pool at the time of writing, with 20.91% of the global hashrate or 42.05 EH/s.

F2pool commands 15.82% of the global hashrate with 31.81 EH/s on Saturday morning (ET). While Foundry found 78 blocks out of the 373 mined in three days, F2pool discovered 59 blocks. There are 13 known mining pools today and stealth miners or “unknown” hashrate commands 2.14% of the global hashrate, or 4.31 EH/s.

Additionally, while BTC’s hashrate has dropped in recent times, other crypto assets that leverage the SHA256 consensus algorithm have seen hashrate drops as well. The hashpower behind the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network is roughly 1.21 EH/s on Saturday and the Bitcoinsv (BSV) network’s hashpower is 0.57 EH/s.

Statistics show that BCH has lost 77.83% of its computational processing power since May 14, 2021, and BSV has shed 88.53% of its hashpower since January 15, 2020. Interestingly, the SHA256-based crypto namecoin (NMC), has 131 EH/s due to its merge mining capabilities.

What do you think about bitcoin’s hashrate sliding below 200 EH/s and the state of other SHA256-based crypto networks? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Bitcoin Hashrate Briefly Slips Below 200 EH/S During Market Rout, Less Than 100K Blocks Left Until the Halving

14/06/2022 by Idelto Editor

After reaching an all-time high on June 8, Bitcoin’s hashrate dropped during the recent bitcoin price drop on June 12-13 to a low of 182 exahash per second (EH/s). While bitcoin’s USD value remains under the $23K zone, Bitcoin’s hashrate has managed to climb back above the 200 EH/s region.

Hashrate Drops to 182 EH/s and Bounces Back Above 200 EH/s, Over 741 Million Bitcoin Transactions Confirmed

Close to a week ago, Bitcoin’s hashrate tapped an all-time high at 292.02 EH/s at block height 739,928 and since then, it has dropped down to just above the 200 EH/s zone. Currently, the hashrate is coasting along at 232.63 EH/s on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

For a brief moment during the crypto market carnage on June 12-13, the network’s computational power slipped down to 182 EH/s from 231 EH/s. The network saw a 21% loss in hashrate during that period of time but quickly rebounded.

At current speeds, the network’s mining difficulty is expected to increase by 0.67% to 30.49 trillion. There’s still a whole week left until the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) changes, which means current estimates could shift. The DAA change is expected to happen on or around June 22, 2022, or 1,050 block rewards to go until the shift.

Furthermore, there’s now less than 100K block rewards left to be found until the next halving or approximately 99,214 blocks at the time of writing. The block subsidy will change after those blocks are mined from 6.25 bitcoins per block to 3.125 bitcoins per block post halving.

Currently, Foundry USA is the top bitcoin mining pool today with 22.52% of the global hashrate after it found 93 of the 413 blocks discovered during the last three days. Poolin is the second-largest mining pool with 13.80% of the global hashrate.

12 known mining pools are currently mining BTC while 0.73% of the global hashrate or 1.62 EH/s is operated by stealth miners. Unknown miners have found three blocks out of the 413 over the last three days.

Over the last 30 days, miners confirmed 7,692,044 BTC transactions and BTC has seen 741,438,457 confirmed transactions over the course of its lifetime. There’s currently 15,679 reachable nodes and 8,290 Tor nodes.

Miners and non-mining nodes that are securing the BTC blockchain have to store 467.6 GB of data at the time of writing. At the time of writing, there’s been 19,067,210.93 BTC minted into circulation and there’s 1,932,574.98 that remains left to be discovered by miners.

What do you think about the current state of the Bitcoin network’s hashrate and mining pools? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Bitcoin’s Hashrate Hits an All-Time High Nearing 300 Exahash per Second

11/06/2022 by Idelto Editor

While Bitcoin’s mining difficulty was expected to decrease two days ago on June 8, instead the difficulty increased by 1.29% on Wednesday. On the same day, at block height 739,928, Bitcoin’s hashrate tapped an all-time high (ATH) reaching 292.02 exahash per second (EH/s).

Bitcoin’s Blockchain Secured by Close to Three Hundred Quintillion Hashes per Second

This week, the Bitcoin network has never been more powerful as the protocol’s computational processing power reached a lifetime high on Wednesday. In fact, at 292.02 EH/s the network neared the 300 EH/s region for the first time.

The last hashrate ATH took place on May 2, 2022, at Bitcoin block height 734,577, when it reached 275.01 EH/s. The jump to 292.02 EH/s 37 days later, was approximately 6.18% higher than the ATH on May 2. The ATH on Wednesday was only 2.73% away from reaching 300 EH/s or 0.3 zettahash per second (ZH/s) range.

The hashrate has been running so high that the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) that was expected to decrease, increased by 1.29% instead. Three days ago on June 7, the difficulty was expected to see a reduction of 0.51%.

Despite the 1.29% increase, the difficulty is still lower than the ATH of 31.25 trillion recorded on May 10, 2022. The network’s difficulty is currently at 30.28 trillion and it is expected to remain at that metric until the retarget date on June 21. That’s roughly ten days from now or around 1,600 blocks away until the next DAA change.

At 292 exahash per second, two hundred ninety-two quintillion hashes per second (H/s) were dedicated to the Bitcoin blockchain’s security on Wednesday. Three-day statistics show that Foundry USA has been the top mining pool, with fifty-two quintillion four hundred twenty quadrillion H/s or 52.42 EH/s.

Foundry has discovered 109 Bitcoin block rewards out of the 475 blocks mined during the last 72 hours. Antpool’s hashrate has hovered around 35.11 EH/s or thirty-five quintillion one hundred ten quadrillion H/s. Antpool found 73 blocks out of the 475 blocks found and F2pool captured 32.EH/s and discovered 67 blocks over the last three days.

Current hashrate speeds and the rate it takes to mine the next 1,600 blocks will determine the next difficulty change. Currently, using today’s metrics, the difficulty is expected to increase by 1.52% from the current position, but that estimate is likely to change.

What do you think about Bitcoin’s hashrate hitting an all-time high at 292 exahash per second? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

13,233 Blocks Found by 16 Pools — A Look at the Top Bitcoin Mining Pools in Q1 2022

12/04/2022 by Idelto Editor

During the first quarter of 2022, Bitcoin’s hashrate averaged between 180 to 200 exahash per second (EH/s) and during the course of that time, 13,233 block rewards were found by 16 mining pools. According to three-month statistics, Foundry USA was the network’s top mining pool in terms of hashrate percentage, as the bitcoin mining operation scored 2,380 blocks in Q1 2022.

Foundry USA Commands Q1 2022’s Top Bitcoin Mining Pool Position

Metrics indicate bitcoin miners issued approximately 82,706.25 BTC over the last three months after collectively finding 13,233 block rewards. That bitcoin block data does not include the fees paid to miners during the first quarter of 2022.

During that timeframe, there were 16 known mining pools and one “unknown” source of hashrate dedicating computational power to the Bitcoin network. The top mining pool during the last three months was Foundry USA as the pool captured 17.99% of the global hashrate in Q1.

Out of 2,380 BTC blocks mined, Foundry USA mined one empty block in Q1. Following Foundry USA’s lead in Q1 was Antpool, as it captured 14.34% of the global hashrate in 90 days. Antpool managed to mine 1,898 bitcoin blocks but four of them were empty.

F2pool was the third-largest bitcoin pool, commanding 14.05% of the network’s overall hashrate in the last three months. The 14.05% of computational power gave F2pool 1,859 blocks out of the 13,233 block rewards found in Q1.

Behind the top three pools, records show Poolin had 12.06% of the global hashrate with 1,596 blocks found, and Binance Pool captured 11.33% of the hashrate with 1,499 blocks found in Q1. The aforementioned five pools collectively captured 57.71% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate.

While there were 16 known mining pools, an “unknown” source of hashrate sometimes called “stealth miners” scored 158 bitcoin blocks, or 1.19% of the overall hashrate. While 2021 was a prominent year for stealth miners, the first quarter of 2022 shows unknown hashrate is much lower this year.

Mining Difficulty Jumped Close to 17% Higher This Year, Unknown Hash Is Still the Most Dominant With 225,778 Blocks Mined Since 2009

During 2022’s first three months, the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) saw five increases and just two reductions. Out of the seven epoch changes, the network’s mining difficulty increased 16.98% higher than prior to the first week of January.

On January 8, 2022, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty was 24.37 trillion and today, the difficulty is 28.59 trillion. The largest DAA increase took place at block height 719,712 on January 20, when the DAA shifted upwards by 9.32%. The largest DAA reduction took place during the first week of March at block height 725,760 when it dropped by 1.49%.

While Foundry USA was the top mining pool in 2022 over the last three months, in terms of lifetime statistics, the pool only represents 0.9% of the hashrate since 2009. The largest entity in terms of lifetime hashrate since 2009, is the unknown hashrate, as it captured 30.9% of the hashrate.

The unknown hash is followed by F2pool, Antpool, Btc.com, and Slush Pool, respectively. The now-defunct mining pool BTC Guild still holds the sixth-largest quantity of hashrate since 2009 with 4.5% or 32,935 blocks mined. For some comparison, Foundry USA has only found 6,300 blocks during the pool’s lifetime mining.

What do you think about the first quarter’s top bitcoin mining pools? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.