Bitcoin's hashrate surges 1,000% to 1 ZH/s amid market downturn
2min read Bitcoin's hashrate has reached a historic milestone, surpassing 1 Zetahash per second (ZH/s) for the first time in its 16-year history. This significant achievement was recorded by several blockchain data sources, with mempool.space data indicating a peak of 1.025 ZH/s on April 5, while BTC Frame data reported a peak of 1.02 ZH/s on April 4. Coinwarz data showed that Bitcoin's hashrate reached as high as 1.1 ZH/s on April 4 at block height 890,915, although it first crossed 1 ZH/s on March 24. However, the hashrate has since fallen back below 0.95 ZH/s on April 7.
The discrepancies in the reported hashrate values are due to the varying methods used to calculate it, such as the measurement of block times, difficulty adjustments, and the selection of Bitcoin nodes and miner pools for data collection. Jameson Lopp, a Bitcoin cypherpunk, previously noted that estimating Bitcoin’s hashrate with one “trailing block” instead of five can result in a difference of over 0.04 ZH/s. Mitchell Askew, head analyst at Blockware Solutions, also pointed out that the 30-day moving average hashrate is still around 0.845 ZH/s, indicating that the raw hashrate metric can be misleading due to random variations in block times.
Despite these discrepancies, the achievement of 1 ZH/s underscores the substantial computational power and increasing decentralization of the Bitcoin network. This makes the network more secure and significantly reduces the likelihood of a 51% attack. The rise to 1 ZH/s represents a 1,000x increase since late January 2016, when Bitcoin first hit 1 Exahash per second (EH/s). In comparison, the second-largest proof-of-work crypto network, Litecoin, currently has a hashrate of 2.49 Petahashes per second, making it around 40,000 times less computationally powerful than Bitcoin.
The surge in hashrate coincides with the growing competition among commercial Bitcoin mining firms. Askew noted that miners are expanding their operations and deploying more efficient machines. Less efficient miners may face challenges unless Bitcoin’s price rallies in the coming months. MARA Holdings is the largest Bitcoin miner with over 50 EH/s of compute power, while the largest share of hashrate is channeled to Bitcoin mining pools Foundry USA Pool and AntPool. Several other publicly listed Bitcoin companies, including Riot Platforms, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, Hut 8 Mining, and TeraWulf, also contribute significantly to the hashrate.
This new all-time high in Bitcoin hashrate occurred amidst a sharp market downturn, with Bitcoin falling nearly 10% over the last four days to $78,750. The downturn was attributed to recession fears sparked by US President Donald Trump’s tariff plans, which led to an estimated $6.6 trillion loss in US stocks on April 3 and 4, marking the largest two-day loss ever. Despite the market volatility, the increase in hashrate highlights the resilience and growing computational power of the Bitcoin network.
