New records for Bitcoin data in view of halving

While Bitcoin Mining Difficulty and hashrate are hitting new highs, The Cryptoverse is discussing the possible consequences of these dynamics.

The halving of the mining reward will be implemented in May, and the collapse of miners expected by various market analysts in recent months seems unlikely.

What is the difficulty of mining

Mining difficulty is a parameter that measures how difficult it is to extract new bitcoins from the net, and should reach another record in a matter of hours. The current value is 14.78T, which is already the highest that has ever been reached. The latest correction of the difficulty, which occurred on January 15, led to a variation of more than + 7%, which is not an unusual number to see.

In fact, the difficulty has only decreased seven times in 2019, usually by a small percentage, except in a measurement in November when it dropped by -7.10%. The difficulty, therefore, usually increases, and we have seen it rise up to 14%. In December 2018 there was what was called the "crypto winter" with a surge in the value of the difficulty of 10%, and a drop in the value of bitcoins to 3,000 USD. The expected difficulty for the next measurement is three times that historical value.

What a high hashrate represents

Meanwhile, the hashrate, or the computational power of the Bitcoin network, is also on the rise. This is a relevant factor, as a higher hashrate suggests a safer network, with more miners competing for the block reward, which commonly leads to greater mining difficulties.

Even the last measurement of the hashrate touched an all-time high with an average value of 98.67 EH / s. For comparison, at the beginning of 2019 it was 42.10 EH / s, while in December 2018 it had dropped to 36.55 EH / s. Its value has steadily increased over the past year, corresponding to the increase in the BTC price. In January 2019, the price was around 3,500 USD, while we have seen it exceed 10,000 USD several times in the past 12 months, reaching nearly 14,000 USD. Currently the BTC value has increased by almost 5% in the last 24 hours, 8% in the last week, 19% in a month and 138% in a year.

The implication of halving

There has been a lot of talk about the fact that many miners would potentially have stopped the activity as the time approached when the reward for loading the blocks would have halved, corresponding to an increase in the difficulty and cost necessary to win a block.

The market speculated in late November that miners might capitulate, but we haven't seen a sign yet, and numbers don't seem to indicate it (yet).

The anticipation of the halving itself may have influenced these recent increases in data, as well as the increase in the price of the world's most popular cryptocurrency.

Speculation on these latest figures is one of the hottest topics of the moment, and there are numerous ongoing debates about whether the half price is already being paid in the market or that the price increase could be the result of an auto prophecy. -avverante.