TL; DR
Full story
Let’s wrap things up with a brief explanation of Bitcoin hash rates.
Why? Because while it may seem small and simple, BTC hash rates can tell us a lot about the state of mining operations.
So what are BTC hash rates?
The hash rate is the amount of computing power used to mine a block.
(I.e. solve some complicated equations, process some BTC transactions and get rewarded in BTC).
Every guess submitted by computers on the network is measured and the hash rate is the number of guesses that occur per second.
Currently, the hash price of BTC has fallen to an all-time low.
This means fewer miners competing to mine each block; and compared to before the BTC halving, although the rewards are halved, the fees are also much lower.
What does this tell us about the state of mining operations?
The important thing here is that it appears that ‘The Great Consolidation’ of mining operations has begun.
There are four leading public miners in the US: CleanSpark, Marathon, Riot Platforms and Cipher Mining. These companies are absolute beasts.
Since the above four have the hardware and infrastructure, the less it costs to mine BTC (the lower the hash price), the more profit they will potentially make.
With those profits, there is a good chance that they will take over all the smaller mining companies that are struggling to be as efficient.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there!