Bitcoin miners intensify operations as network complexity peaks
Investing.com | Editor Venkatesh Jartarkar
Published Oct 20, 2023 12:00PM ET
Bitcoin miners are ramping up their operations, undeterred by the cryptocurrency's stable price, as the network's hash rate reached a record 455 EH/s on Wednesday last week, doubling from the start of this year. This information indicates an increase in computational power dedicated to mining Bitcoin, suggesting that miners are continuously upgrading their hardware and expanding facilities.
The complexity of block mining on the Bitcoin blockchain also hit a peak at a block height of 812,448 on Monday this week. The Bitcoin difficulty adjustment, which occurs every two weeks to maintain a 10-minute block time, reflects the increased complexity. Prominent players in this space include mining pools such as Foundry USA, Antpool, Viabtc, F2pool, and Binance Pool (NASDAQ:POOL).
Miners earn a block reward of 6.25 BTC along with transaction fees for successful mining. This process is known as Bitcoin Halving and takes place every four years. The next halving event is expected in six months' time. As the block reward halves, dependence on transaction fees increases. This could intensify competition among key mining pools and potentially raise transaction costs for users.
The surge in Bitcoin's hash rate and mining difficulty suggests that miners are adapting to changes in the network's economic model and are ready to compete in a more challenging environment. Despite the stable price of Bitcoin, these developments suggest that the cryptocurrency's underlying technology continues to evolve and attract significant investment from miners.
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