Bitcoin's Total Hashrate Slides Lower in Dec as BTC Miners Struggle for Profits

https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoins-total-hashrate-slides-lower-in-december-as-btc-miners-struggle-for-profits/

Bitcoin’s Hashrate Slips Lower

The first week of November 2022 was brutal for digital currency prices as FTX’s collapse rippled across the entire industry in a negative fashion. Prior to the FTX fallout, bitcoin was trading above the $20K zone and the network’s total hashrate was coasting along at roughly 270 to 290 exahash per second (EH/s) before the blowout.

There was a quick burst of increased hashrate the day after FTX filed for bankruptcy and BTC’s total hashrate tapped an all-time high on Nov. 12, 2022. At block height 762,845, bitcoin miners managed to get the hashrate to briefly rise to a whopping 347.16 EH/s. Since then, the hashrate has divebombed and slid below the 200 EH/s range on Nov. 26.

Presently, bitcoin miners have managed to rise above the 200 EH/s region, to the current 236 EH/s recorded at 10:15 a.m. (ET) on Dec. 2, 2022. The drop in hashrate indicates that unprofitable mining entities have been forced to shut down machines, while only the strong operators survive.

At the time of writing, the estimated cost of bitcoin production ($16,956) is awfully close to the leading crypto asset’s spot market value ($16,897). Previously, the cost of bitcoin production was $18,313 on Nov. 30, which was significantly higher than BTC’s spot market value. With a drop in BTC production costs, it makes it easier for current operators to survive.

Bitcoin miners are also expecting a large mining difficulty reduction between 6.56% to 7.9% lower than today’s difficulty rating on or around Dec. 5, 2022. Presently, the estimated mining difficulty reduction could be the largest difficulty drop the network has seen in 2022. Since Nov. 30, up until Dec. 2, 2022, roughly 80 exahash of hashpower has been removed from the network’s total hashrate.