A Number of Small Bitcoin Mining Farms Are Quitting as Older Mining Rigs Become Worthless

Tech has proven itself to double in terms of the transistor count on integrated circuit boards every two years; in other words, technology’s capabilities essentially double every two years — while it’s difficult to judge the progress of tech as a whole, tons of devices’ abilities do, in fact, share a major link to Moore’s Law.

The simple way to think about Moore’s Law is how often you feel buying a new phone, laptop, television, or another modern digital consumer good is necessary to keep up with the times: it’s pretty often, isn’t it? This long-known rate at which technological devices tend to go obsolete renders tons of equipment useless, a major problem for businesses that make a heavy emphasis on IT and otherwise using the latest devices, programs, and methodologies.

All About Bitcoin Mining — What Is It and Why Is It So Important?

Bitcoin is the world’s most valuable digital currency and cryptocurrency. It was the world’s first cryptocurrency, being released in 2009, and reached an all-time high of roughly $19,600 around Nov. 2017. Today, it trades for several thousand United States dollars per bitcoin.

Even though Bitcoin isn’t widely used as a true currency, it’s still traded to the tune of $4 billion per day as of mid-2020 — there’s a lot of money moving around in the form of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin transaction ledgers, which are all compiled into the singular blockchain, are available to the public and cryptographically verified by the public, or anybody who dedicates computing power, electricity, and Internet bandwidth to solving blocks and snapping them into the blockchain. Mining is what’s required for Bitcoin transactions to flow. In exchange for their efforts, miners are given a small percentage of each block they help solve proportionate to how much computing power they donated.

Understanding HashRate and How It’s Changed Over the Years

Two-and-a-half years ago, around Feb. 1, 2017, the average hashrate of Bitcoin in terms of exahash per second, or EH/s, hit 25 EH/s for the first time. Starting about a year ago, this rate would occasionally rise to 100 to 120, if not a little higher, though it wouldn’t last long. From June 8 to 10, the exahash-per-second rate held steady between 100 and 120, one of the highest sustained rises of all time.

This exponential increase in hashrate has rendered tons of old-school mining equipment and companies out of operation in recent months. The maturity and success of Bitcoin have resulted in BTC mining pools decreasing in number, down to just 15 in the world as of mid-June 2019. The leading pool, F2pool, holds some 20% of the hashrate.