Blockchain data shows that the Bitcoin network’s hash rate crashed from 166.6PH/S to 57.7PH/S. The reason for such a massive drop remains unknown. Last week Bitcoin hash rate reached a historic milestone after it passed 102 quintillion hashes.
Throughout the summer, Bitcoin hash rate has been very strong as it continued to reach all-time highs. Hashrate of a cryptocurrency is a way to measure the number of calculations that a given network can perform each second. The higher hash rate indicates a higher competition among the miners to validate new blocks.
The higher hashrate also means that a network is more secure, and it would require huge resources to pull off a 51% attack. Many experts pointed at the higher hash rate of the network to predict a bullish bitcoin run which means that a lower hash rate could lead to a market crash. In 2018, Crypto analyst Max Keiser predicted a bullish run as he wrote price follows hashrate and hashrate continues its nine-year bull.
Price follows hashrate and hashrate chart continues its 9 yr bull market. #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/Rh49V9gaJw
— Max Keiser, tweet poet. (@maxkeiser) August 8, 2018
In November 2017 something similar happened as bitcoin saw a sudden crash in hashrate of more than 50%. After the crash price of the leading cryptocurrency saw a dip and transaction processing time also slowed down.
