“The run up in bitcoin price paired with a shortage on ASIC chips has caused mining economics to turn favorably to miners, with many miners running at 85%+ mining margins,” said Ethan Vera, CTO of the Bitcoin mining firm Luxor.
Bitcoin's hashrate – the total combined computational power used to mine the cryptocurrency – reached a new all-time high on Tuesday.
The newly reached hashrate of 179.4 exahashes per second comes as Bitcoin makes a definitive comeback in value after the price crash of early 2018. Bitcoin miners are purchasing mining machines, as well as the relevant semiconductor chips to power mining machines, as the price of Bitcoin goes up and miners face a shortage of such chips, reports Coindesk.
"The run up in bitcoin price paired with a shortage on ASIC chips has caused mining economics to turn favorably to miners, with many miners running at 85%+ mining margins," said Ethan Vera, CTO of the Bitcoin mining firm Luxor.
"Miners are trying to get their hands on every machine possible, and even ASICs launched in 2014 are profitable. All of Luxor's clients have all of their rigs plugged in and hashing including their oldest machines. There is little to no idle hashrate out there."
The surge in hashrate also comes as new ASIC purchases made in bulk by richer Bitcoin miners finally reach their intended purchasers after a backorder. Big miners are often purchasing tens of thousands of units of ASIC chips at a time.
The price of Bitcoin currently sits at roughly $72,000 CAD ($56,000 USD).
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