What is Bitcoin hashrate and why is it important?

The SHA-256 cryptographic hash function, which converts input data into a 256-bit string (hash), is one of the technologies Bitcoin uses to measure hash rate. The function is one-way, so it’s easy to determine the hash from the input, but not vice versa.

Hashrate, which can be expressed in billions, trillions, trillions, and quintillions, is the number of computations that can be performed per second. For example, a hash rate of 1BH/s indicates that 1 billion guesses are possible per second. But how is Bitcoin’s hashrate measured? To express BTC’s hashrate, we use exahash per second (EH/s), which is equivalent to 10 quadrillion hashes. By comparing the average time between mined blocks to the difficulty of the network at a given time, we can roughly calculate the hash rate of the entire network.

So what is mining difficulty? The mining challenge refers to how difficult it is for a miner to generate a hash lower than the desired hash. This is achieved by lowering the number of hashed block headers. On average, a new block (Bitcoin) he finds every 10 minutes. However, when BTC is found less frequently than the average time, the difficulty decreases or vice versa.

Additionally, it should be noted that the mining difficulty of the Bitcoin network automatically changes once 2,016 blocks have been mined. Therefore, the difficulty can be increased or decreased depending on the number of miners and total hashing power within the mining network. So what is Bitcoin’s current hashrate?

Bitcoin’s exact hashing power is unknown, but can be inferred from the number of blocks currently being mined and the block difficulty. So how do you monitor Bitcoin hashrate? Blockhain.com provides an estimate on Bitcoin’s current hashrate which is 224.383m TH/s as of September 25, 2022. I’m here.