Bitcoin (BTC) may have hit a six-week low below $20,000, but their network fundamentals are anything but bearish.
The latest on-chain data shows that, far from capitulating, hash rate and difficulty are gaining big.
The data supports a jump in difficulty
Despite being down around 7% in a week, the BTC/USD pair is not putting off miners, who have recently emerged from their own multi-month capitulation phase.
Now, With the return of hardware and competition to the network, fundamentals are firmly in “only up” mode as August draws to a close.
This is clearly reflected in difficulty—an expression of, among other things, the scale of competition among miners for block grants—which is estimated to increase by 6.8%. next week.
According to data from on-chain monitoring resource BTC.com, this will be the largest upward difficulty adjustment since January of this year.
Not only that, but yes, the 6.8% increase materializes, the difficulty will jump to new all-time highs.
“We may see a jump in difficulty big enough to set a new (or near-new) all-time high within days,” Bitcoin mining consultancy Blocksbridge predicted in the latest edition of its regular newsletter, “Miner Weekly.” , published on August 27.
However, Blocksbridge noted that the current climate was not easy for all network participants. Those with older equipment, for example, were feeling the squeeze thanks to spot price losses and an equivalent drop in the value of block subsidies and tariffs against costs like electricity.
“In short, the bear market is affecting those with inefficient mining fleets,” he added.
Hash rate bounces back to hit an all-time high
Back to the most bullish figures, Bitcoin hash rate seems to be riding hard in a new push towards new all-time highs.
According to estimated data from monitoring site MiningPoolStats, the hash rate stood at up to 246 exahashes per second (EH/s) which, as of August 22, was close to all-time highs of 251 EH/s measured at end of april.
The hash rate is always an estimate, and its value fluctuations do not imply direct increases or decreases in miner activity.
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