Following the network difficulty change six days ago on September 27, Bitcoin’s hashrate surpassed the 295 exahash per second (EH/s) range two times during the first two days of October. Presently the network is coasting along at 229 EH/s and block intervals have been faster than the ten-minute average, which means another upward difficulty adjustment is likely in the cards. With Bitcoin’s mining difficulty looking as though it will reach another all-time high (ATH), the network’s hashrate has increased exponentially from six million hashes per second to the recent two hundred ninety-five quintillion hashes per second.
Bitcoin’s Network Hashrate and Difficulty Continues to Rise
Bitcoin’s computational power is a whole lot stronger than it was 13 years ago. The network’s mining difficulty reached an all-time high just recently on September 13, 2022, at block height 753,984.
The height the mining difficulty reached was approximately 32.05 trillion hashes and it’s a high probability that the network will see an upward adjustment on or around October 11, 2022. Statistics show that the difficulty retarget could be anywhere from 4.22% higher to 10.7%.
Despite the lower bitcoin (BTC) U.S. dollar exchange rate and a difficulty that’s close to the ATH, miners have continued to increase their hashpower. In fact, there is no computational network today, that has exponentially risen at the pace the Bitcoin Network’s hashrate has increased during the last decade.
On January 19, 2009, Bitcoin’s hashrate was approximately six million hashes per second (6,290,000) and using the recent 295 EH/s recording, it equates to two hundred ninety-five quintillion hashes per second (295,000,000,000,000,000,000). Those two data points indicate that the network’s hashrate has grown four quadrillion percent higher in 13 years’ time.
Current block times have been less than the ten-minute average at 9:01 minutes at the time of writing. On October 1, 2022, the block interval was even faster at 7:95 minutes in between blocks. Difficulty adjustments are a lot more common every two weeks than they were in the early days (pre-2010).
It wasn’t until February 2, 2010, or block height 40,320 that the difficulty rose above 1 hash and by September 18, 2017, at block height 485,856 Bitcoin’s network difficulty rose above 1 trillion hashes for the first time.
Just like the hashrate, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has risen exponentially as well, increasing three quadrillion percent since February 2, 2010, or during the course of the last 4,626 days. At the time of writing, more than 756,888 bitcoin blocks have been mined into existence and 1,831,949.98 BTC remains left to mine.
What do you think about the Bitcoin network’s exponential hashrate growth and the difficulty adjustments in recent times? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
