Bitcoin's Hashpower Drops, BTC Mining Difficulty Expected to Jump Higher in 4 Days

The processing power behind the Bitcoin network has dropped 30% since the hashrate’s all-time high (ATH) on February 15, sliding from 249 exahash per second (EH/s) to 169 EH/s. Furthermore, four days from now, the network’s mining difficulty is expected to increase following the 4.78% epoch change on February 17.

Bitcoin Hashrate Drops From 249 Exahash per Second to 169 EH/S in 12 Days

From January 13 to February 15, Bitcoin’s hashrate was coasting along at record highs for roughly 33 consecutive days. This weekend, on Sunday, February 27, 2022, the hashrate has dropped 30% from the 249 EH/s ATH captured on February 15. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s (BTC) network hashrate is around 168.14 EH/s or 168,144,793,932,750,200,000 hashes per second (H/s).

Bitcoin's Hashpower Drops, BTC Mining Difficulty Expected to Jump Higher in 4 Days — The six-month chart indicates that Bitcoin’s global hashrate has dropped 30% since the hashrate’s all-time high (ATH) on February 15, 2022.

Meanwhile, bitcoin’s price has been lower than usual but 30-day statistics show the price per BTC is up 4.4%. Although, bitcoin mining monthly revenue and 7DMA revenue mining stats are down according to onchain metrics. The drop in processing power speed may help drop the next difficulty change, as it’s expected to increase by 1.18% in four days to 27.64 trillion. If the difficulty does increase in four days, it will be the seventh consecutive difficulty increase since November 28, 2021.

Currently, the top bitcoin mining pool during the last three days is Foundry USA with 20.52% of the global hashrate (38.85 EH/s) and finding 79 block rewards within that time frame. Foundry USA is followed by Antpool’s 30.49 EH/s or 16.10% of the global hashrate. At the time of writing, three-day metrics indicate that there’s 11 known bitcoin mining pools today. Unknown hashrate or stealth miners command 1.3% of the global hashrate or 2.46 EH/s of hashpower capturing five block rewards in three days.

Presently, the most-profitable SHA256-based application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) bitcoin mining device is the Bitmain Antminer S19 Pro 110 terahash per second (TH/s) machine. Using today’s BTC exchange rate and $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), the Antminer S19 Pro makes just over $10 per day. The Microbt Whatsminer M30S++ (112 TH/s) makes $9.82 per day in bitcoin profits.

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11 known pools, 169 EH/s, 249 EH/s, Antpool, ASIC, ASIC miners, ATH, Bitcoin mining, Bitmain Antminer, BTC exchange rate, BTC Mining, difficulty, difficulty increase, Foundry USA, hashrate ATH, hashrate drop, Microbt Whatsminer, mining, Mining Pools, SHA256-based, Unknown Hash

What do you think about the hashrate dropping after it hit an ATH on February 15? What do you think about the next estimated difficulty drop expected in four days? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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.