Bitcoin’s hashrate has declined in recent times after reaching an all-time high on June 8, 2022, at block height 739,928. 30-day statistics show the hashrate has slipped from 243 exahash per second (EH/s) to today’s 178.44 EH/s, losing 26.56% during that time frame. After two drops in a row, the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) is expected to drop again roughly 11 days from now or 1,600 blocks away.
After All-Time High on June 8, Bitcoin’s Hash Rate Drops 26% in 30 Days
The drop in bitcoin (BTC) prices has impacted bitcoin miners who are not seeing the profits they made a month ago today. Using current BTC exchange rates, one grant value per block is worth $136,625 per block and over the past 90 days the hashrate has averaged around 213.8 exahash per second (EH/s ).
On June 8, 2022, the hashrate tapped a high of around 292.02 EH/s at block height 739,928 and today it’s much lower at 178.44 EH/s. Statistics recorded over the last month indicate that BTC’s hashrate slipped 26.56% lower than the average after the first week of June.
While the price of BTC is lower and hovering just above the $21,000 region, BTC miners paused on the last two DAA changes after seeing two downward adjustments. The last two DAA changes have made finding BTC blocks easier by 3.76% and the next DAA change is expected to drop another 0.13%.
However, there’s still 11 days left until the next DAA change and the time it takes to find 2,016 BTC blocks will determine if the DAA goes up or down. Since March 3, 2022, the Bitcoin network has recorded six downward adjustments and four increases.
Crunchtime: less than 100,000 blocks left until the next block subsidy halving
While the hashrate has dropped by 26% in the past 30 days, 4,216 block grant rewards have been discovered by miners. Foundry USA found the most with 959 blocks found last month and around 22.75% of the global hashrate.
Foundry was followed by Antpool which captured 14.61% of the global hashrate and discovered 616 blocks last month. There are 14 known BTC mining pools today, and unknown hashrate or stealth miners obtained around 56 block rewards last month which equated to 1.33% of the 30-day hashrate.
There are less than 100,000 blocks left until the next reward halving (95,699 blocks at press time) and miners will see their earnings cut in half at that time. The halving is expected to take place on or around April 16, 2024, or 647 days from now.
After that date, bitcoin miners will only get 3.123 BTC per block in comparison to today’s 6.25 BTC block reward. Metrics on Saturday, June 9, 2022, indicate that mining rig profitability at $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) is low.
The most profitable ASIC mining rig today is the Bitmain Antminer S19 XP which produces 140 terahash per second (TH/s). The Antminer S19 XP makes an estimated profit of $5.13 with electricity costs of $0.12 per kWh.
