According to PANews, Bitcoin's hashrate is anticipated to reach 1 Zettahash per second (ZH/s) by the next halving event in approximately 3.5 years, posing challenges for miners to secure cheaper electricity deals and more efficient equipment. Even with a steady annual growth rate of 20%, the average hashrate could hit this level, equivalent to 1000 Exahashes per second (EH/s), by 2027. Data from Glassnode indicates that since 2020, the hashrate has grown by an average of 65% annually, with the current seven-day moving average at about 787 EH/s.
As the hashrate approaches 1 ZH/s, miners will need to adopt more innovative strategies to sustain operations and adapt to a more challenging market. A recent post on X suggested that the hashrate for a single block might have already reached 1 ZH/s. However, due to the probabilistic nature of mining, block time variability, and short-term network fluctuations, single block readings are considered inaccurate. Industry standards typically use at least a seven-day moving average to account for anomalies and ensure reliability.
In addition to the increasing hashrate, the difficulty of mining a block is also rising. Since October, the blockchain has undergone seven consecutive positive difficulty adjustments, with the current difficulty standing at 109.78 trillion. Difficulty is adjusted every 2016 blocks and recalibrated to maintain an average block mining time of approximately 10 minutes.
