On-chain data shows the Bitcoin mining Hashrate has seen a notable jump since the mid-March lows, a sign that miners have been coming back.
Bitcoin Hashrate Has Retraced Much Of The Earlier Decline
The “Hashrate” refers to an indicator that keeps track of the total amount of computing power that miners have connected to the network. It’s measured in terms of hashes per second (H/s), or more practically, in exahashes per second (EH/s). This metric can serve as a proxy for the sentiment among miners; its value going up can imply the chain validators are finding the network profitable to mine on, while its value going down can suggest this cohort is leaving the chain for now
As the chart below from Blockchain.com shows, the 7-day average value of the Bitcoin Hashrate witnessed a drawdown during the first half of March.
Looks like the value of the metric has shot up in recent days | Source: Blockchain.com
Interestingly, this drop in the metric came alongside a recovery surge in $BTC’s spot price. Often, miners tend to follow the cryptocurrency’s value as their revenue directly correlates with it. This time, however, the two showed a divergence.
Some speculated that the decline may be due to a shift that the mining industry has been observing recently, with many big public mining companies choosing to focus on the emerging AI/datacenter business. Since bottoming at 920.8 EH/s on March 19th, however, the Hashrate has made significant recovery, raising doubts about the theory.
Today, the 7-day average value of the Hashrate is sitting at 1,036.6 EH/s, which is about 12.5% up from the low seen earlier in the month. The metric is still not quite back at the 1,083.9 EH/s top from March 1st, but if the recent trajectory continues, it’s possible that a full recovery could happen.
It only remains to be seen, though, how the Hashrate will develop in the near future, considering the consolidation phase that Bitcoin has been stuck in during the war uncertainty and miners making a push toward AI.
In some other news, the Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were observing a streak of positive netflows earlier, but the latest week has broken the trend, according to data from SoSoValue.
The data for the weekly netflows for US $BTC spot ETFs over their history | Source: SoSoValue
As displayed in the above graph, the US Bitcoin spot ETFs saw net inflows for four straight weeks before the latest one, implying demand was pouring into the cryptocurrency via these funds. Last week, however, the trend reversed as over $296 million in capital left the vehicles instead.
$BTC Price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $67,600, down nearly 5% over the past week.
The trend in the price of the coin over the last five days | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView
Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com