New record for bitcoin hashrate during halving

Yesterday, on the day of the third halving, there was a new record high for Bitcoin’s hashrate. 

In fact, according to bitinfocharts.com the 137 Ehash/s were exceeded for the first time, beating the previous record of March 5th. 

However, not everyone agrees with these figures, which are to all intents and purposes only estimates. For example, according to Blockchair, yesterday’s hashrate would have stopped at about 121 Ehash/s, compared to 122 on May 8th, and 123 on March 8th. 

The block time data, however, would seem to confirm that yesterday there could have been a significant hashrate peak, since on average 8.471 minutes were enough to mine a block, compared to 8.623 on March 4th. However, March 1st was still lower, at 8.163, although the difficulty was lower then. 

Yesterday, however, the difficulty was almost at an all-time high, which took place between March 10th and 25th, 2020. 

Such a low block time with such a high difficulty suggests that there may have actually been a record hashrate yesterday, as estimated by Bitinfocharts.

Bitcoin’s hashrate after the halving

Today the block time already rose to 9.172, probably due to a drop in hashrate. It is possible that after the halving some miners have switched off the less efficient machines, or moved them to some other blockchains, reducing the total computing power available to bitcoin mining. 

Despite this, however, the block time has not increased, still averaging less than 10 minutes, but it is possible that it may increase again in the next few hours or days. 

There were those who expected a 30% collapse in hashpower after the halving, but for now, this collapse does not seem to have occurred. We will have to wait at least a day or two to start drawing definitive conclusions about what is happening in this regard these days. 

The next update of the difficulty, which should fall, making mining less difficult and expensive, should take place in about 8 or 9 days, which means that for more than a week the miners will have to continue to operate with the current very high level of difficulty, the second-highest ever after the two weeks between March 10th and 15th. 

The profitability of bitcoin mining today has fallen sharply compared to yesterday, from USD 0.152 per day for 1 THash/s to 0.120. However, this level is still significantly higher than the very low level on March 18th, when it fell to 0.069. 

If the current level of profitability were to fall further, a more marked reduction in hashpower is to be expected, at least until the difficulty is reduced. 

In any case, it seems that these hashrate dynamics have no impact on BTC’s prices on the market.