Forget BTC price: The Bitcoin mining boom is quietly going parabolic
Bitcoin (BTC) may be struggling at $30,000, but under the hood, all-time highs of a different kind keep coming.
The latest data shows that Bitcoin network fundamentals — difficulty and hash rate — will hit new records this week.
Bitcoin’s 2023 recovery has been about more than just BTC price action, with miners seeing a significant turnaround of their own.
As BTC/USD added 70% in Q1 alone, pressured mining participants saw some much-needed relief after the bear market squeezed profit margins to practically zero.
The comeback for miners is evident in difficulty, which among other things, reflects competition for block subsidies.
This has made new all-time highs for the past two months, and this week will be no exception. According to data from BTC.com, the difficulty will increase by approximately 2.1% on April 20, reaching 48.91 trillion.
The dizzying tally is a full 13 trillion higher than at the start of the year alone.
Additionally, Bitcoin network hash rate is also estimated to be higher than ever, with raw data from MiningPoolStats etching a new all-time high of 418 exahashes per second (EH/s) on April 18.
As Cointelegraph reported earlier this week, hash rate estimates are far from concrete and can be misleading, with calls now surfacing to reevaluate how it is measured and reported by those seeking to make bullish conclusions about BTC price strength.
However, as the old adage goes, “price follows hash rate,” and some commentators continue to watch the metric keenly as it drifts ever higher.
A key focus is Russia, stepping up mining activity over the past year to reportedly become the world’s second-largest miner in 2023, according to a report in Russian-language news outlet Kommersant.
While this has led to concerns that
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