Bitcoin Hashrate Reaches an All Time High in Q1 of 2022

Prior to the spring of 2021, the majority of the hashrate to secure the Bitcoin network was located in China. Miners were consistently adding more ASIC machines to their mining farms in order to earn rewards for providing energy to the network. 

During the spring of that year, the China crackdown began to take effect across the nation. Specifically regions like Qinghai, Xinjian, and Inner Mongolia experienced the largest exodus of miners.

Source: insights.braiins.com

The majority of China’s hashrate moved to the U.S. and Kazakhstan during that time. Currently the U.S. is estimated to have around 35% of the global Bitcoin mining hashrate. The relocation of miners has taken some time for the stranded miners to find or build new facilities. In total, it took less than 12 months for the hashrate to fully recover from its June 2021 low of 69 EH/s to reach an all time high of 262 EH/s on February 12th, 2021.

Mining companies like Marathon Digital Holdings, Hut 8 Mining, and HIVE Blockchain were given the opportunity to mine bitcoin with less competition. Many other mining companies also increased their ASIC machine inventory during the fall of 2021 as hardware prices fell.

Marathon ordered 199,000 miners last quarter and had plans to deploy 13,000 per month while replacing some of its older equipment.

Hut 8 reported that it has more than doubled its hashrate which rose by 125% year-over-year reaching 2 EH/s.

HIVE Executive Chairman Frank Holmes states that “Our Bitcoin hashing power increased in December and at the calendar year-end our hashrate was 1.7 Exahash, which translated into a 10% increase in BTC mining on a month over month basis, while BTC prices corrected.”