Ethereum Blockchain Hashrate Analysis Sees Downward Spiral in Power Continue Ahed of Upgrade

The Constantinople hard fork in getting closer and closer to happening after being postponed due to a bug in the update. In response to this, the mining hash rate is declining by the day as miners await the hard fork.

According to Etherscan, the Ethereum network recorded the lowest year to date daily hash rate at 139,150.9412 GH/s on February 7^th, 2018. While the figure has improved slightly in the past two weeks to 156,160.2588 GH/s daily hash rate, it is still way short of the hash rate recorded in August 2018, 293.048.2055 GH/s.

Ethereum Network Hash rate growth chart (Image: Etherscan)

The Constantinople hard fork is set to reduce the block rewards from 3 ETH to 2 ETH signifying a 33% reduction. Analysts in the field are predicting a rise in the price of ETH following the reduction in block rewards as seen with the halving effect on Bitcoin’s price.

Bitcoin on its part has also faced a decrease in the mining hash rate as more miners abandon mining. The high prices of electricity and mining equipment make it difficult to make a profit for the miners. The hashing rate is slowly increasing as the mining difficulty increases in anticipation of the halving set to occur in mid-2020.