The price of bitcoin has been on a long losing streak since November 10, 2021, when the leading crypto asset tapped an all-time high at $69K per unit. During the last two weeks, bitcoin has shed more than 19% in value, and the network’s hashrate has dropped from over 200 exahash per second (EH/s) to 174 EH/s losing roughly 15% in ten days.
Civil unrest in Kazakhstan leads to hashrate loss speculation, Kazakhstan bitcoin miners say issues have not affected them
This week, civil unrest in Kazakhstan has left many wondering whether or not this will affect Bitcoin’s global hashrate. The reason for this assumption is that it is estimated that Kazakhstan accounts for at least 18% of the global hashrate, according to the most recent estimates from the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF). Looking at the 30-day chart for Bitcoin’s hashrate (BTC) indicates that the hash power of the protocol has lost around 15% in ten days.
Reports stemming from Kazakhstan indicate that the civil unrest has stabilized and the country’s Data Center Industry and Blockchain Association of Kazakhstan (NABCD), said the issues did not affect digital currency miners. There were a few issues that may have affected bitcoin miners over the last week that are not associated with the problems in Kazakhstan.
Bitcoin’s low price and higher difficulty puts pressure on Bitcoin miners
Five days ago, bitcoin (BTC) was trading hands for $ 46.5,000 a unit, but the price has fallen more than 10% in value. Additionally, over a month ago, the top performing mining rig with over 100 terahash per second (TH / s) would get $ 25 to $ 30 per day, per machine, and an electricity tariff. of $ 0.12 per kilowatt hour. Today, that same mining rig will produce $ 14.87 per day at the time of writing, using the same power consumption. The drop in the price of bitcoin could most definitely affect the hashrate and could be one of the reasons it fell 15%.
Another reason why the hashrate dropped 15% could be because of the last mining difficulty increase. The last increase took place on January 8, 2022, as the network’s mining difficulty jumped 0.41 % higher. While that may not be that much of an increase, the difficulty is awfully close to the metric’s all-time high, and the network has seen three consecutive increases in a row. In more than 11 days from now, the mining difficulty is expected to increase again, up 0.67% from where it is today.
Currently, pool distribution statistics over the past three days show that F2pool and Foundry USA are now the world’s largest mining pool, as the two pools each have 16.74% of the global hashrate or 29.03 EH / s per pool. There are 13 known mining pools dedicating the SHA256 hashrate to the BTC chain and the unknown hashrate represents 1.40% of the aggregate or 2.42 EH / s. Despite the recent drop in hashrate, from December 31 to present hashrate is up 26.08% since New Years Eve.
