Hashrate

Hashrate counts how many hash attempts miners perform each second. For Bitcoin, network hashrate is estimated from the rate at which blocks are found relative to difficulty and is quoted in exahashes per second, where one exahash equals a quintillion hashes. Individual miners report their own installed or realized hashrate, often in petahashes or exahashes.

Rising hashrate indicates more capital and energy committed to securing the network, which makes attacks more expensive. It also raises difficulty, reducing each miner’s share of rewards and lowering hashprice. Network hashrate responds to bitcoin’s price, new chip generations, energy costs and events such as halvings or regional power curtailments. A listed miner’s share of network hashrate determines its expected share of block rewards.

For allocators, hashrate trends signal miner investment and competition, and a company’s hashrate growth is a core operating metric. Example: a miner that adds new machines and grows its hashrate from 1% to 2% of the network should roughly double its expected bitcoin production, all else equal.