#CryptoReboundStrategy
The computational power of Bitcoin could reach a significant milestone much before the next halving. The Bitcoin hashrate increased by approximately 50% in 2024 and is currently on track to increase for the eighth consecutive time.
What to know:
The Bitcoin hashrate has appreciated by 56% in the last year, with an average of around 787 EH/s over a seven-day period.
If the hashrate grows at a conservative rate of 20%, it should reach 1 zettahash by 2027.
Since October, the Bitcoin network has experienced seven consecutive positive difficulty adjustments, a streak not seen since the mining ban in China in 2021.
The hash rate of Bitcoin (BTC), the computational power required to mine a block in a proof-of-work blockchain, is on track to reach 1 zettahash per second before the next halving event in about 3.5 years, which will put miners under pressure to secure cheap energy deals and more efficient equipment.
The average hashrate could reach that level, equivalent to 1,000 exahash per second (EH/s), by 2027, even if it increases at a fairly slow rate of 20% annually. It has grown an average of 65% annually since 2020 and currently hovers around 787 EH/s on a seven-day moving average, according to Glassnode data.
The hash rate is an important component of the profitability of bitcoin miners. The higher the hash rate, the higher the energy costs, which is why it is so important for miners to optimize their business operations. It also influences the security of the network, which has appreciated by 56% in the last year.
The growth rate accelerated in the second half of 2024 after the April halving, when block rewards fell by 50% to 450 BTC per day, reducing the income that miners receive. The pressure became so intense that some miners could not survive by only mining bitcoins. They had to move some of their operations to artificial intelligence (AI) computing, and some even opted to buy bitcoins on the open market.
At a rate of 1 ZH/s, miners will need to find more creative ways to stay afloat and adapt to a more challenging market.
In fact, it is possible that the hash rate has already reached 1 ZH/s for a single block, according to a post on X on Thursday. However, a reading of a block is inaccurate due to the probabilistic nature of mining, block time variability, and short-term network fluctuations. The industry standard is usually at least a seven-day moving average to account for outliers and reliability.
It is not just the hashrate that is increasing; the difficulty of mining a block is also rising. Since October, the blockchain has experienced seven consecutive positive difficulty adjustments, currently at 109.78 trillion (T). Difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks and is recalibrated so that blocks are mined every 10 minutes. The last time the network experienced seven consecutive positive adjustments was after China banned mining in 2021, when the hashrate fell by 50%.
This time, however, the hashrate and difficulty move in unison.
