Hashrate (TH/s)

Bitcoin network hashrate in TH/s.

Bitcoin Price Overlay

Bitcoin market price sourced from blockchain.info API

Hashrate quantifies how difficult it is to mine a coin/block. All of the computing power generated from mining then secures the network. This means that as the network grows larger, it is more difficult to attack it. In short, there is a positive relation between the hashrate and the security the network provides [1] . As the blockchain grows, mining becomes increasingly difficult, which increases electricity consumption and ultimately leads to a higher cost per coin mined. Today, the theoretical lower bound for the price of bitcoin is set to be based on the current hashrate, the lowest global price of electricity and the most efficient hardware [2] [3] .

In other words, hashrate is the amount of computing power used to mine a coin/block. The theoretical lower bound is the minimum electricity cost to mine one coin or block, using optimal hardware efficiency and almost zero operational overhead.

Network Difficulty

API Source: blockchain.info

The difficulty parameter is a metric that reflects the computational resources currently used for mining. This metric is linked to the network's hashrate, as it is automatically recalibrated to maintain a targeted average block discovery time of approximately ten minutes. Increased computation by miners leads to shorter block times, thereby triggering an upward adjustment in difficulty.

Following Bitcoin Wiki [1] , the network difficulty is defined as the ratio of the fixed Difficulty 1 Target to the Current Target of the block:Difficulty = Difficulty 1 Target / Current Target

The difficulty 1 target is the target that was used to mine the first block in the chain, and the current target is the target that is used to mine the current block. In simple terms it is a relative measure of difficulty of mining a block.