Bitcoin mining continues to attract new followers eager to earn digital coins with ease. The great coin has been on the market over 10 years, it does not frighten new generation with its complexity, and innovative approaches any more. Quite the contrary, more and more people are getting engaged into the digital technology and learn the necessary basis. One of the essential Bitcoin parameters to understand is Bitcoin’s hash rate. In this article, we will get closer to its definition.
What is Bitcoin’s hash rate?
The hash rate is the measuring unit of the processing power of the Bitcoin network. In other words, this is the performing rate used for mining. The Bitcoin network must make intensive mathematical operations for security purposes. Mathematical tasks needed to be solved to generate new blocks are called ‘hashes’. That is why we use ‘hashes per second’ parameter to measure hash rate.
The computing power of the Bitcoin network has grown significantly. The equipment performance is constantly increasing. Therefore, it is more practical to use more convenient units of measurement to express this indicator. For example, terahash / sec (1 TH / s = 1,000,000,000,000 H / s) and petahash / sec (1 PH / s = 1000 TH / s). Now, Bitcoin hash rate is measured in exahashes (1 EH / s = 1000 PH / s).
New historical high
Fast moving changes lead to new numbers. Bitcoin’s hash rate has reached a new all-time high. The computing power of the blockchain has reached 170 EH / s. The analytical service Glassnode revealed such a number in the Twitter account. Crypto experts note that hash rate has increased by 40% since the last halving. How does it influence the whole mining situation?
The cryptocurrency network has become more secure and more decentralized as the number of connected equipment has increased tremendously. We can observe another Bitcoin’s record that took place in September. The recalculation shows the following results: the complexity of mining cryptocurrency has reached 19.3 trillion hashes.
Hash rate and connected factors
The complexity of mining, mining income and hash rate are interdependent. Let’s take Bitcoin’s mining. Each time the complexity of mining rises, hash rate increases. The number of miners connected to the Bitcoin net goes up, the complexity of mining also boosts. It is necessary to take into account expenses on electricity the mining equipment uses.
There is such a term as energy performance of a miner. The increasing complexity of crypto mining influences the rise for electricity expenses. Crypto enthusiasts should keep in mind that hash rate is an important factor, but it is necessary to remember about energy performance of the chosen equipment.
How to increase hash rate?
Crypto followers can use special software to overlock video cards for crypto mining. The default settings of the clock speeds of the GPU and video memory are increased. The main purpose is to find the maximum possible values at which the mining equipment will perform stable work. It is advised to take into account the following:
Increasing hash rate this way leads to “side effects” such as increased power consumption and heat transfer. Crypto miners will need to pay for the increase of electricity expenses and installation of more advanced cooling system.
Using cards at their peak leads to wearing away of mining equipment and its faster breakdown.
For safe overclocking of ASIC miners, special flash utilities are used. Depending on the type of cooling, users can significantly increase the hash rate of the device. The air version traditionally loses to the immersion one. In the last one miners are immersed in a special heat carrier that effectively removes heat from the device.