On February 8, 2024, the Bitcoin network hash rate reached a record level of 609 EH/s, according to the seven-day moving average (SMA), with the three-day SMA showing a peak at 617 EH/s. This coincided with a rise in Bitcoin's value, which exceeded $45,000 on Thursday and $46,000 on Friday, increasing the expected daily profit from one petahash per second from $74.91 to $79.61.
Over the past year, the Bitcoin hash rate has shown an upward trajectory, increasing by 332 EH/s since February 7, 2023. On February 2, 2024, miners faced a 7.33% increase in mining difficulty, and the upcoming adjustment on February 15 is likely to lead to a further increase in difficulty.
The average interval between block creations is slightly less than the standard ten minutes, indicating a potential increase in difficulty between 5.3% to 10.3%. The block generation time varies from 9 minutes 17 seconds to 9 minutes 2 seconds, leaving just over 1000 blocks until the next difficulty epoch.
Currently, about 54 mining companies are actively mining Bitcoin, with Foundry USA leading with a contribution to the Bitcoin network of 185.45 EH/s, accounting for 30.79% of the total hash rate. It is followed by Antpool with 166.26 EH/s (about 27.6% of the total hash rate) and other major mining pools.
The growth in Bitcoin's hash rate is attributed to several factors, including the increase in BTC price and the introduction of new, more efficient mining rigs with improved terahash performance and reduced power consumption per terahash.
