In brief
- Bitcoin’s hash rate surged to 1.12 billion TH/s on September 12, marking a new record high.
- The surge in hash rate has also adjusted Bitcoin difficulty to an all-time high of 136.04T.
- Experts suggest this outlook has historically preceded an explosive price surge.
After Bitcoin’s recent price surge saw it breach a two-week high amid multi-week record inflows to U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, hash rate and difficulty have also hit new all-time highs.
Bitcoin’s hash rate, which is the measure of the network’s total computational power, hit 1.12 billion TH/s on September 12, per Bitinfocharts data. The network’s difficulty, a measure of how computationally hard it is for miners to find a new block on the blockchain, also touched a record high of 136.04T.
Hash rate is the total computational power of all miners that secures the Bitcoin blockchain. The difficulty in finding a block increases once every 2016 blocks are mined, or roughly every two weeks, and it increases if the hash rate increases.
The next difficulty adjustment, per CoinWarz, is scheduled on September 18, 2025, and the current estimate puts the value up 6.38% to 144.72T.
With such a huge spike, Varun Satyam, co-founder of DeFi platform Davos Protocol, told Decrypt that these windows often cause “smaller or inefficient miners to scale back, while larger, efficient operators hold or even accumulate, positioning for the rally to recover their capex.”
With the highly anticipated Federal Reserve rate decision due on September 17 and risk-on markets primed for a 25 basis point rate cut, investors are bullish, expecting Bitcoin’s price to push higher. This outlook coincides with the uptick in miners’ reserves bouncing to a 50-day high of 1.808 million BTC on September 9, per CryptoQuant data, indicating that miners are not looking to sell their stack.
Satyam explained that hash rate surges post-halving have historically preceded price rallies. “We may be entering a similar phase now,” he said, with easing selling pressure and the right macro backdrop, “Bitcoin is primed for a decisive upward move with altcoins riding shotgun.”
Users of prediction market Myriad, launched by Decrypt’s parent company DASTAN, are more sanguine. While over 80% expect it to hold above $105,000 through September, they’re more evenly split on its broader outlook, with just 56% expecting it to top $125,000 by year-end versus 44% who see it dipping under $105,000.
Bitcoin is currently trading at just under $115,000, up 0.8% on the day and 2.3% on the week, per CoinGecko data.
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
