Bitcoin price plummets while miner hash rate soars to all-time highs

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin miners can’t stop, won’t stop. The Bitcoin (BTC) hash rate continues to surge to new all-time highs, despite a heavy price drawdown. 

The Bitcoin mining hash rate peaked at 258 exahashes per second (EH/s) on Oct. 4, according to Braiins Insights, a mining data tools and metrics company. Although the Bitcoin price is down 58% year-to-date against the United States dollar, the mining hash rate is up 43%.

Bitcoin Gandalf from the marketing team at Braiins told Cointelegraph that, “The hash rate hitting another all-time high shows that miners are bullish about the future prospects of Bitcoin.” Nonetheless, the current macroeconomic environment could pose an issue, as “the present isn’t so rosy for Bitcoin miners,” Gandalf said, adding:

In a series of tweets, mining engineers and hobbyists shared their thoughts regarding the hash rate hitting all-time highs while the price remains low. Rob W of Bitcoin mining company Upstream Data summed up the sentiment: 

I'm really proud of all of my mining friends, things are going great. pic.twitter.com/dIzh2ITTfq

Market analyst Zack Voell explained that the surging hash rate could be as a result of “XPs coming online.” The S19 XP Antminer is the latest model from Bitmain, one of the world’s most popular Bitcoin mining hardware suppliers.

The number of hashes produced in a second is commonly referred to as the hash rate. In Bitcoin speak, hash rate is a critical security metric as well as one that many BTC miners keep their eyes on.

In simple terms, the more hashing — or computing power — that the network churns out, the greater the overall security of Bitcoin. As a result, Bitcoin is more resistant to attack, the most common of which is known as a 51% attack.

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