Anticipating Changes in Network Difficulty

Institutional Bitcoin data provider Block Scholes anticipates a novel impact from next week’s Bitcoin halving on the network’s performance. The company believes that it may lead to an immediate drop in the network’s hash rate by roughly 25% within the first two weeks. The firm predicts this event will have a unique effect on the network compared to previous years, particularly in how quickly the difficulty adjusts post-halving.

Eamonn Gashier, Founder and CEO of Block Scholes, highlighted that the total block reward, in terms of both Bitcoin and USD, typically rebounds to pre-halving levels months after the event despite an immediate reduction in rewards. “There will be 672 blocks after the halving — block 840,000 — before difficulty is adjusted, marking the shortest wait time miners have faced post-halving for a difficulty adjustment,” said Gashier. He also noted that a more substantial drop in hash rate is anticipated shortly after the halving, potentially taking longer to recover due to the largest dollar-denominated impact on miner revenue ever seen, combined with the wait time for a significant difficulty adjustment.

In the longer term, Block Scholes expects the hash rate to continue its exponential growth, albeit at a slower pace. This forecast is based on the high miner rewards and eventual adjustments in mining difficulty to compensate for the reduced block reward.

CleanSpark commits to 100k more S21 Pro Miners.

Meanwhile, CleanSpark Inc. has significantly advanced its mining capabilities, achieving a new high of over 17 exahashes per second (EH/s) as its recently acquired data center in Dalton, GA, comes online. The company also exercised an option to upgrade and purchase 100,000 Bitmain S21 Pros, increasing its total purchased hash rate by 17% to 23.4 EH/s.

This strategic move by CleanSpark, as detailed by CEO Zach Bradford, is aimed at enhancing efficiency ahead of the halving. “Efficiency is the most important variable as we head into the halving,” said Bradford. The upgrade to the S21 Pro model, which operates at 15 joules per terahash, represents a 14% improvement in efficiency over the S21 model. The company stated that this increase in efficiency supports the broader Bitcoin network by potentially increasing the company’s market share post-halving while reducing overall network energy consumption.

With the halving days away, both CleanSpark and the broader Bitcoin mining industry may face significant shifts with unprecedented price discovery for this time in a Bitcoin cycle.

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