Bitcoin’s ‘Hash Rate’ Hits Record Low After Fourth Halving Event

Key Points

• Bitcoin’s hash price has reached a new all-time low following its fourth halving event on April 20.
• This decrease in hash price comes despite a brief surge in revenue due to the excitement over Runes etching and a relatively high hash rate.

The term ‘hash price’, coined by Bitcoin mining services company Luxor, refers to the anticipated value of 1 PH/s or 1 TH/s of hashing power per day. This metric provides a measure of how much a miner can expect to earn from a specific amount of hash rate.

Bitcoin’s Hash Price Hits Historic Low

Runes Transaction Fee Windfall Subsides

After the halving of block 840,000, which generated $2.4 million in fees, Bitcoin went on a record 104-block run of transaction fee rewards higher than the subsidy. This was largely due to the excitement surrounding Runes – a new fungible token standard for Bitcoin developed by Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor. Runes generated over $135 million in fees for miners in their first week, pushing up the average transaction fees on the Bitcoin network and the hash price to $182 per PH/s per day ($0.18 per TH/s per day) on April 21.

However, transaction fee rewards have since significantly decreased, resulting in the hash price reaching its new all-time low early Monday morning. The impact of this drop on the hash rate, the total computational power dedicated to the network by miners, remains to be seen. Currently, the seven-day moving average remains steady at around 640 EH/s.

The slowing rate of block production since Bitcoin’s last difficulty adjustment on April 24 could indicate a declining network hash rate. Public miners significantly expanded their operations in the previous halving cycle. Earlier this month, analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra predicted further industry consolidation towards four leading public miners: CleanSpark, Marathon, Riot Platforms, and Cipher Mining.