Talks of Death Spiral Downplayed as Bitcoin’s Hashrate Continues to Climb

 At the back of a period of consistently sustained bearish price actions in the Bitcoin (BTC) mining market along with three significant hashrate reductions in the final phase of last year, the top digital cryptocurrency network now appears to be back on track making its way towards attaining optimum health.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Today – BTC / USD

NamePrice24H %
bitcoin
Bitcoin(BTC)
$0.00-0.15%

Bitcoin (BTC) Reverses Hashrate Drop

In December 2018, a report given by CCN indicated that the flagship BTC Blockchain’s hashrate declined by 7% in only 24 hours as Bitcoin miners shutdown their rigs or left the market altogether following the persistent issue of low prices along with nonexistent margins. Several crypto critics have even predicted that the Bitcoin (BTC) is heading into a “death spiral.”

Now, however, the difficulty target of Bitcoin (BTC) has been revised upward. It is now closer to where it stood in the early part of December, which is an indication that miners have started coming back to the market. As per data published by Blockchain.com and DRIVE Insider, the Blockchain network’s hashrate has reportedly risen to 40,219,475,700 GH/s. This figure is close to the position it was in December last year.

This report comes as a step in the right direction for Bitcoin holders who have repeatedly resisted pressure to sell off their coins because of the $3,000 support level the asset maintained in the larger part of December last year. After which it managed to bounce back to the $3,600 currently.

The Importance of the Difficulty Adjustment

The difficulty adjustment mechanism is in place that ensures that no matter the price movements, the network will have the adequate capacity to complete transaction hashing with a dynamic system designed to ease difficulty whenever miner numbers reduce and vice versa. Hence, increased difficulty adjustment generally means that a larger number of miners are coming into the scene, which is an indication that the cryptocurrency winter may be undergoing a mild thaw.

Do not forget that despite the much-publicized troubles of Bitcoin’s price last year, the network’s hashrate is three times more than what it was at this point in January 2018.

2019 Might Turnout in Favor of Bitcoin (BTC)

If the Bitcoin price is able to sustain its current price movement going into the New Year, 2019 might turn out in favor of the Bitcoin which will make this an interesting year for cryptocurrency miners.

This is particularly the case because after all the altcoins out there recorded a disappointing year. Now, attention has once again shifted to the top digital asset by market cap Bitcoin (BTC) as the lodestar digital currency that refuses to die, with major developers looking to build on the Bitcoin Blockchain rather than other crypto networks.

Right now, we can’t say for sure that miners are actually returning to the space. Because it is still too early to reach a conclusion with absolute certainty that the Bitcoin miners have started to come back to the market in mass because there’s a minor lag between difficulty adjustments and miner numbers. Until Q1 runs its course before the difficulty target can safely show a better picture of the state Bitcoin mining.

Brian Lubin is a Crypto News Reporter for Smartereum. He's well-known for his reports on the crypto markets.

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