While the cryptocurrency market has cooled off with Bitcoin dropping below $40,000, bitcoin mining difficulty has gone up to its all-time high. With Bitcoin miners competing more fiercely to verify transactions, the number of hashes has reached 27.97 trillion according to an on-chain analysis by BTC.com. In addition, an analysis by YCharts shows that Bitcoin’s hash rate last week increased to 248 EH/s, its highest level ever.
A hash rate is a measure of the amount of processing power required to mine blocks on the blockchain network. As the hash rate increases, it becomes more difficult to mine blocks. The recent hash rate number stunned many crypto enthusiasts, including Dylan LeClair, who described it as “going nuts.”
As this statistic illustrates, Bitcoin mining has never been more popular – or more widely distributed – than it is right now. Nevertheless, it does also mean it takes more computational power to perform mining, which has become a staple concern of crypto skeptics.
Twitter was buzzing with debate about how Bitcoin’s newfound difficulty record will contribute to environmental deterioration. According to some sources, if Bitcoin were a country, it would consume a comparable amount of electricity to the country of Finland every year.
It will take some time to reach the final verdict. However, one noteworthy thing is that the latest Bitcoin mining difficulty numbers rebounded like clockwork – speaking to the robust demand for mining on the world’s largest blockchain. Last year, when China clamped down on crypto mining, the network’s mining difficulty dropped to around 69 EH/s. That means it has gone up by 72% since then. The data also shows how the mining industry is no longer isolated in China.
Around 91 terawatt-hours of electricity are indeed consumed by Bitcoin mining annually, which is more than the annual electricity consumption of Finland – a country of 5.5 million people. But it is also true that miners are now looking to renewable energy for their energy needs. It will take time to determine what effect current Bitcoin mining has on the environment since the Cambridge University mining map has not been updated since August 2021, and a lot has changed since then.