The price of the currency has plummeted and the difficulty of mining has increased. Why has the computing power of Bitcoin increased instead of decreased?

Author: Xi Xixi

Source: Caijing.com Chain Finance

In the early hours of this morning, the difficulty of Bitcoin mining was adjusted again. According to BTC.com data, the mining difficulty has reached 13.69 T, ​​and it is expected that the difficulty will increase by 4.65% to 14.33 T in 13 days. From 22:08 on the evening of October 10 to 5:42 on October 24, the 14-day average computing power reached 97.90 EH/s. It is worth noting that the 7-day average computing power of Bitcoin has also exceeded 100. According to the current data from the CoinIn mining pool, the computing power of the entire network in the past week is 101.59 EH/s, and the computing power of the entire network in the past three days has reached 109.27 EH/s.

At this time, Bitcoin plummeted. According to the data from the Tradingview platform, Bitcoin has been trading sideways at $8,200 for nearly two days since October 21. It began to fluctuate and fall at 3 a.m. yesterday. After falling below $8,000 at around 11:20 p.m. yesterday, the price rebounded slightly. It began to fall straight at 20:25 last night, falling below $7,600 for a short time and then falling below the $7,500 mark. Today, the price of Bitcoin fluctuated mainly in the price range of $7,400-7,500. During this period, it fell below $9,400 three times and then rebounded slightly. As of press time, it was temporarily reported at $7,445.3.

According to the latest shutdown coin price table, according to the current difficulty, when the comprehensive electricity fee is calculated at 0.35 yuan/kWh, the coin price is still around 8,000 US dollars. Among the 18 mainstream BTC mining machine models in the table, the four mining machines, Shenma M3, Avalon A741, Ebit E9+ and Antminer T9+, have reached the shutdown coin price, but the electricity cost ratio of Antminer S9 has increased from 78% last Friday to 88% at present, which is closer to its shutdown coin price. The number of mining machines with electricity costs exceeding 50% has also increased from 12 to 14.

According to the mining machine resale information recently released by the second-hand mining industry, the S9 series mining machines including S9 and S9j are being sold in large quantities, but there are also some mining industries and miners who choose to purchase them at low prices at this time.

At the same time, the flood season is coming to an end, and some mining machines are about to enter shutdown mode. A miner said in a group chat:

"According to the current coin price and difficulty, and the fact that the dry season has arrived, all low-computing machines must be shut down. Such machines account for at least 30% of the total network computing power."

In this regard, Zhu Yu, co-founder of Biyin, told Caijing.com Chain Finance:

"It's only October now, and the flood season will end in a month. If there is no drought, it will last until December."

In addition, some miners explained to Caijing.com Chain Finance that the flood season will basically end on the 25th of this month (that is, tomorrow), and if it lasts longer, it will last until next month. This mainly depends on the different geographical locations. After all, the flood season starts at different times in different places.

However, as the computing power is still rising, some industry insiders expressed their confusion about the current phenomenon that "the price of the currency has plummeted, and the difficulty of mining has increased, but the computing power has increased instead of decreased."

Zhu Yu told Caijing.com Chain Finance that the hashrate is still at a relatively stable stage, with a relatively balanced shutdown and startup. He also agreed that the reason why the hashrate has exceeded 100 is mainly because mining machines with high hashrate are gradually being put on the market.

But at the same time, some people also raised doubts. Before the big drop yesterday, it was predicted that the difficulty of Bitcoin mining would increase by 2%, but after the big drop, the difficulty actually increased by 6%. It seems unlikely that all the high-computing power mining machines would be put on the shelves and turned on in an instant.

In response to this, a miner responded in the miner group that the hashrate (switch) has a lag, and miners will not be cut off immediately due to a temporary price fluctuation. In addition, although it is unlikely to shut down a large number of mining machines in an instant, the instantaneous switching of hashrate is possible. If someone thinks that BTC is resistant to falling, the hashrate of the mining machine that mines BCH and BSV can be instantly switched to BTC.