Bitcoin hash rate spikes to 398 exahash, analysts say miners coming back online

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin's (BTC) hash rate spiked to all-time highs of 398 exahash on March 23, and analysts have been speculating miners are starting to turn their rigs back on as the Bitcoin price rises.

According to data aggregator YCharts the Bitcoin network hash rate has dropped to 344.63 as of March 27, an increase from 335.32 on March 26 but it is still up from 178.77 one year ago.

In a March 26 post, Sam Wouters, a research analyst at Bitcoin (BTC) financial service provider River Financial, speculated the spike in hash rate is connected to unused mining inventory coming online, new facilities going live, and entrepreneurs finding cheap sources of mining.

Bitcoin's hashrate touched 400 Exahash. At the current growth rate in 2023, we'd reach a Zettahash by the end of 2025.I'm getting questions and concerns from people.Where is the growth coming from? Is it nation-states? Secret mining operations? Did someone find some exploit? pic.twitter.com/MMWfgPbqty

“While Bitcoin's price was so low and as much inventory as possible was brought online last year, at some point, maximum capacity of what the network could handle was reached," he said.

“Now that the price has been rising again and some time has passed, more of this inventory has been able to go online,” Wouters added.

In addition, Wouters says that Hydro models are starting to get into the market, and they have "250+ TH/s per machine, which adds tremendous hash rate."

A March 20 analysis from investment banking company Stifel shared a similar sentiment, speculating that the recent spike could be connected to miners bringing hardware back online.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Nazar Khan from Bitcoin mining company TeraWulf, explained the company is currently maximizing the hash rate of