500,000 new ASIC mining machines enter the market, and the total computing power of the Bitcoin network reaches a new high

Translator: ElaineHu

It is reported that in the past three months, at least 600,000 powerful new mining machines have been put online for mining, causing the total computing power of Bitcoin mining to hit a new high again.

According to data from crypto mining pool website BTC.com, Bitcoin’s average hash rate in the last two weeks has exceeded another important threshold, reaching a new high of 85 EH/s at around 19:00 UTC last Friday. At the same time, the mining difficulty was also adjusted to a new record of nearly 12 trillion.

Notably, the data shows that both figures have jumped 60% since June 14.

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty (a measure of how hard it is to create a block of transactions) is adjusted after 2016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks. This is to ensure that the time it takes to generate a block remains around 10 minutes, even as the number of miners deployed around the world competing for Bitcoin mining resources fluctuates.

This summer, several new ASIC mining machines came onto the market, with an average hash rate of about 55TH/s.

Assuming that all of the 35 EH/s of hashing power added since mid-June came from these top-tier miners, a rough calculation suggests that there are already more than 500,000 such machines connected to the Bitcoin network (1 EH/s = 1 million TH/s).

A multi-billion dollar business?

These powerful ASIC miners are produced by major manufacturers such as Bitmain, Canaan, InnoSilicon and MicroBT, and range in price from $1,500 to $2,500. Therefore, if more than 500,000 units are in use as estimated above, these leading mining machine manufacturing companies may have earned $1 billion in revenue in the past three months.

The soaring hashrate and difficulty of Bitcoin, in line with the soaring price of Bitcoin since earlier this year, has led to increasing demand for mining equipment that has far outstripped market supply. This is also partly due to the rainy summers in southwest China, which have led to cheap and abundant hydroelectric power resources.

There has also been growing interest in Russia’s East Siberia, where the Cold War-era Brask hydroelectric power station is used to power mining farms. The region is estimated to account for around 10% of the Bitcoin network’s hashrate.

Earlier this year, Chinese miners estimated that Bitcoin’s average hash rate this summer would surpass 70 EH/s in August.

As a result, equipment from major mining machine manufacturers has been sold out, and these equipment will be shipped before the end of this year, with customers placing reservations three months in advance.

TokenInsight, a startup focused on analyzing crypto trading and mining activities, said in a report released last Friday that it expects more mining equipment supply to enter the market in the coming months.

“The Bitcoin mining market saw a clear upward trend in the second quarter of 2019 as the price of Bitcoin rose sharply. Most mining machines from different manufacturers are in severe supply shortage, and pre-orders submitted in the second and third quarters will be delivered before the end of this year.”

Therefore, the company estimates that by the end of this year, the difficulty of Bitcoin mining will continue to grow and exceed 15T, and the computing power of the Bitcoin network will exceed 100EH/s for the first time in history.