This was due to a drop in hashrate (a measure of the total computing power of all participating nodes, expressed in units of hash computations per second) from 1.1 zettahashes per second (ZH/s) to 826 exahashes per second (EH/s). Meanwhile, its cost (hashprice) remains at multi-year lows ($23.9 PH/s), squeezing profitability metrics, clarifies coindesk.com.
That is, for the same cost, there are fewer bitcoins mined per unit of computation. It also takes into account that the price of this cryptocurrency has plummeted from a peak of $123,000 to $60,000-67,000 with the same electricity and hardware costs.
One of the main factors behind the recent decline in bitcoin hashrate is that several publicly traded mining companies are diverting energy and computing power to data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing.
As a result, miner activity experienced its sharpest decline since late 2021 after a severe winter storm in the United States forced several large operators to cut back on operations.
Despite these pressures on profitability, large operators with access to low-cost energy continue to be active in mining. The United Arab Emirates, for example, has approximately $344 million in unrealized profits from its mining operations.
