https://www.ohnocrypto.com Bitcoin (BTC) Network Shows Boost in Hashrate and Wallet Activity With New Price Surge
1 hr ago
Bitcoin (BTC) Network Shows Boost in Hashrate and Wallet Activity With New Price Surge
As BTC market prices marked a recent record above $9,300, mining and wallet usage also signal increased optimism.
Bitcoin (BTC) is showing more signs of optimism, including a peak in hashrate and a spike in wallet activity.
The Bitcoin hashrate rose above 61.79 EH/s, most likely due to the abundance of hydroelectric power, combined with the shipments of new, more powerful mining rigs by Bitmain. For now, the lawsuits and the failed IPO of the leading ASIC producer are not affecting mining rates.
At $9,000, BTC is also way above breakeven prices for mining in most regions, creating significant interest in seeking block rewards. But in general, BTC mining has not slowed down significantly even during the lows of the bear market.
Another sign of higher activity is the number of pending transactions. As BTC comes from another rally, pending transactions rose to above 17,000, showing a mild network congestion. Still, this number is relatively low compared to the backlog of above 300,000 transactions toward the end of 2017.
Active wallet use has been growing gradually in the past three months. Based on Bitinfocharts, there are nearly 800,000 active wallets, and other statistics show more than 1 million active wallets. During downturn times, BTC is rarely moved. But now, after months drifting at low prices, BTC is becoming attractive again.
The level of BTC transactions remains well above 300,000 in 24 hours, though peaks of activity usually precede the rallies. One of the reasons for the relatively low BTC activity is the lack of spam transactions. BTC transaction fees hover around $1.63, after temporarily falling to lows of $0.05 on low activity in the past months.
The increased Bitcoin hashrate also makes the network uniquely safe. While it is possible to divert short-term transactions with a 51% attack, though quite expensive, rewriting the whole network is much more difficult:
Attacking the Bitcoin network for an hour would cost upward of $600,000, though it is impossible to hire this kind of hashrate. At this point, more than 50% of all blocks are produced by the four leading mining pools – Antpool, Via.btc, F2Pool and BTC.com.
by Christine Masters, 1 hr ago
OhNoCrypto
via BruceDayne, Christine Masters, Khareem Sudlow