Post-Halving Hash Rate Drop Could Affect Bitcoin; CleanSpark Prepares with New BTC Miners

By: Isha Das

Next week's Bitcoin halving could lead to a significant drop in network's hash rate by about 25% within the first two weeks, according to institutional Bitcoin data provider Block Scholes. This event is expected to have a unique impact on the network, especially regarding the speed of difficulty adjustment post-halving. Despite an immediate reduction in rewards, the total block rewards, in terms of Bitcoin and USD, usually rebound to pre-halving levels months after the event.

Block Scholes predicts a more substantial hash rate drop shortly after the halving that could take longer to recover due to the largest dollar-denominated effect on miner revenue ever seen, combined with the wait time for a considerable difficulty adjustment. In the longer run, Block Scholes forecasts that the hash rate will continue its exponential growth, although at a slower pace. This prediction is based on the high miner rewards and eventual adjustments in mining difficulty to compensate for the reduced block reward.

In response to this, CleanSpark Inc. has greatly advanced its mining capabilities, reaching a new high of over 17 exahashes per second (EH/s) as its newly purchased data center in Dalton, GA comes into operation. The firm has also purchased an additional 100,000 Bitmain S21 Pros, improving its total purchased hash rate by 17% to 23.4 EH/s. This move aims to improve efficiency ahead of the halving and could possibly increase the company's market share post-halving while reducing network energy consumption.