Bitcoin’s
Hashrate Plummets After Crypto Market Crash
Back in February, Bitcoin’s
price tested the $10,000 barrier numerous times, but has since seen its price
drop. Last week, it plummeted from $7,100 to around $4,000 in two days,
before recovering slightly to $5,160. Overall, the crypto market lost over
$90 billion.
The price drop is now
pressuring miners, who have been betting on the flagship cryptocurrency
significantly ahead of its upcoming halving event, expected to occur in May. Bitcoin’s hashrate rose from 50 million
TH/s in March of last year to a 137 million TH/s high earlier this month. The
price drop has seen the hashrate plummet to 100 million TH/s.
Commenting on the drop,
cryptocurrency mining pool F2Pool revealed that the estimated difficulty
change is now trending downward, as “some miners are now switching off their
machines.” The mining pool noted that there’s “a time lag for hashrate
to decrease” after large price drops, due to “hosting contracts, and time
required for operators to turn off a large number of machines.”
Miners have been focusing on
Bitcoin and its forks – Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV – as these
cryptocurrencies will see their block rewards be cut in half this year
because of the halving event. Bitcoin, specifically, will see its block
rewards drop to 6.25 BTC per block.
While the hashrate had been
increasing so miners could mine as much as possible ahead of the event, it
now likely decreased because BTC’s price is making it hard for them to make a profit.
