Bitcoin is rising, no doubt about that. The “people’s currency”is moving fast above the $10,000 mark, currently trading at around $11,000 at the time of this writing. However, while the price of Bitcoin is rising, this does not point to any real development of the currency or the future evolvement of digital coins. The price is still very volatile and speculative, experiencing significant fluctuation.
However, one factor that is showing a good healthy trend for Bitcoin is its hashrate. The hashrate essentially represents the value of the work of miners to all transactions that are processed. As the Merkle notes, the increase in hashrate power is not correlated to the price of Bitcoin. An increase in the hashrate may indicate several things. It seems that the price somehow affects the hashrate, and not vice versa – a very interesting phenomenon.
Recently, as the price is rising, the hashrate is also increasing. The explanation here may be that mining hardware online for a better price reward has increased. In such sense, the hashrate has surged to new all-time high – mining power now hits 69 exohash per second. The mystery here – who is brining all this hardware in the online space so rapidly?
One of the “theories” is that a new unit ASIC is helping the surge, but that is just a rumor. The most prominent advantage of an increased hashrate is the absence of any delays in Bitcoin transactions. While it is a mystery who exactly drives up the hashrate power, the news is overall very positive for the entire bitcoin community.