Bitcoin's Hashrate Hits an All-Time High Nearing 300 Exahash per Second

While Bitcoin’s mining difficulty was expected to decrease two days ago on June 8, instead the difficulty increased by 1.29% on Wednesday. On the same day, at block height 739,928, Bitcoin’s hashrate tapped an all-time high (ATH) reaching 292.02 exahash per second (EH/s).

Bitcoin’s Blockchain Secured by Close to Three Hundred Quintillion Hashes per Second

This week, the Bitcoin network has never been more powerful as the protocol’s computational processing power reached a lifetime high on Wednesday. In fact, at 292.02 EH/s the network neared the 300 EH/s region for the first time.

The last hashrate ATH took place on May 2, 2022, at Bitcoin block height 734,577, when it reached 275.01 EH/s. The jump to 292.02 EH/s 37 days later, was approximately 6.18% higher than the ATH on May 2. The ATH on Wednesday was only 2.73% away from reaching 300 EH/s or 0.3 zettahash per second (ZH/s) range.

The hashrate has been running so high that the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) that was expected to decrease, increased by 1.29% instead. Three days ago on June 7, the difficulty was expected to see a reduction of 0.51%.

Despite the 1.29% increase, the difficulty is still lower than the ATH of 31.25 trillion recorded on May 10, 2022. The network’s difficulty is currently at 30.28 trillion and it is expected to remain at that metric until the retarget date on June 21. That’s roughly ten days from now or around 1,600 blocks away until the next DAA change.

At 292 exahash per second, two hundred ninety-two quintillion hashes per second (H/s) were dedicated to the Bitcoin blockchain’s security on Wednesday. Three-day statistics show that Foundry USA has been the top mining pool, with fifty-two quintillion four hundred twenty quadrillion H/s or 52.42 EH/s.

Foundry has discovered 109 Bitcoin block rewards out of the 475 blocks mined during the last 72 hours. Antpool’s hashrate has hovered around 35.11 EH/s or thirty-five quintillion one hundred ten quadrillion H/s. Antpool found 73 blocks out of the 475 blocks found and F2pool captured 32.EH/s and discovered 67 blocks over the last three days.

Current hashrate speeds and the rate it takes to mine the next 1,600 blocks will determine the next difficulty change. Currently, using today’s metrics, the difficulty is expected to increase by 1.52% from the current position, but that estimate is likely to change.