Bitcoin's Hashrate Surges Reaching a Lifetime High, Difficulty Expected to Jump Next Week

Bitcoin’s hashrate tapped a lifetime high this weekend reaching 271.19 exahash per second (EH/s) on Saturday, April 23 at block height 733,197. Currently, the computational power is coasting along at 233.81 EH/s with a network difficulty change expected three days from now on April 27.

Bitcoin’s Hashrate Records an All-Time High, Hashpower Increased 55% Higher Since January

The processing power that confirms transactions and secures the Bitcoin (BTC) network has reached an all-time high (ATH) on Saturday, April 23. The hashrate touched 271.19 EH/s, which is approximately 271,190 petahash per second (PH/s) or 271,190,000,000,000,000,000 hashes per second (H/s).

Bitcoin’s hashpower has never been higher than this point in history and since block height 717,696 or January 8, 2022, the hashrate’s record high is an increase of 55.48% since then. The processing power backing the Bitcoin network reached an ATH of 246 EH/s on February 12, prior to the all-time high recorded on Saturday.

Bitcoin's Hashrate Surges Reaching a Lifetime High, Difficulty Expected to Jump Next Week — Bitcoin hashrate according to coinwarz.com on April 24, 2022. The network reached an all-time high of 271.19 exahash per second (EH/s) on Saturday, April 23 at block height 733,197.

Following a downward difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) change at block height 731,808, which saw the difficulty drop by 1.26%, the network is expected to see a DAA increase in roughly three days. Because the hashrate is running at such high speeds, the DAA is expected to increase by 3.21%.

If the estimated DAA increase of 3.21% comes to fruition, Bitcoin’s network difficulty will jump from the current 28.23 trillion to a lifetime high of 29.13 trillion. Presently, on Sunday afternoon (ET), a block subsidy reward worth 6.25 BTC is currently valued at $247,063 using today’s bitcoin exchange rates.

As Bitcoin’s hashpower tapped an ATH on Saturday, over the last three days, the top mining pool was Foundry USA capturing 22.55% of the global hashrate. Statistics show that Foundry’s 47.89 EH/s has allowed the pool to find 106 out of the past 470 blocks found by 13 pools. The second-largest bitcoin miner below Foundry USA was Binance Pool with 12.98% or 27.56 EH/s of hashpower.

While statistics show that bitcoin’s price has not had the best first quarter in 2022, the hashrate increasing by more than 55% since that time is quite the feat. Metrics indicate that BTC’s current value is profitable to mine using most ASIC devices with 25 TH/s or more. At press time, the Bitmain Antminer S19 Pro (110 TH/s) mining rig with $0.12 per kilowatt-hour in electrical costs will see an estimated profit of $10.23 per day.

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Jamie Redman

Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.