Bitcoin Hashrate Briefly Reaches Zetahash Per Second

Bitcoin’s hashrate, which measures the total computational power of the network, has now surpassed 1,000 exahashes per second (or a zetahash per second) for the first time, according to data provided by CoinWarz.

The milestone was achieved for the first time on Jan. 2 at around 23:00 UTC.

Bitcoin’s hashrate has been growing exponentially over the past few years. A year ago, for comparison, it was at 173 EH/s. Over the past year, the hashrate has grown from 588 EH/s to a zetahash.

Following the quadrennial Bitcoin halving that took place in April, there was a significant hashrate drawdown in July due to some miners struggling to deal with lower block rewards. Their revenue dropped sharply from a pre-halving peak of roughly $2 billion in March to a post-halving low of $815 million in September.

However, the hashrate managed to recover, surging from a July 18 low of 521 EH/s to as high as 844 EH/s on Oct. 21.

The surging hashrate means that the Bitcoin network has become more secure and resilient.

As reported by U.Today, Bitcoin mining difficulty, which increases in lockstep with hashrate, recently reached a new record peak of 109.78 trillion. The next difficulty adjustment, which will take place on Jan. 12, is also expected to be positive. Mining difficulty is on track to surpass the 111 EH/s mark for the first time.

Recent research also shows that Bitcoin hashrate and price tend to be correlated. Notably, both directions of casual effect between them could be plausible.

In December, The Bitcoin price surpassed the $100,000 mark for the first time, currently trading at $96,675.