Bitcoin network fundamentals appear more resilient than ever to attacks on miners‘ operations.
Bitcoin (BTC) set a new all-time high for hash rate last week, but opinions are divided as to whether the uptrend can continue.In a Twitter debate on March 21, Preston Pysh, host of The Investor‘s Podcast, eyed changing behavior in Bitcoin‘s hash ribbons metric for signs of a new hash rate “lull.”Questions over “lull” in hash rate after record highsBitcoin has overcome considerable odds over the past year to see the processing power dedicated to mining — hash rate — reach a giant 222 exahashes per second (EH/s) this month, according to estimates from monitoring resource MiningPoolStats.First China sparking a mass miner exodus, then this year‘s crackdown of mining hubs in Kazakhstan put the cat among the pigeons in terms of miner operation.Nonetheless, a full recovery ensued on both occasions, reinforcing the idea that as long as there is at least one “friendly” jurisdiction for miners, mining will come back harder than ever before.Hash ribbons use two simple moving averages (SMAs) of hash rate to assess miner health and has been used to conclude when likely price bottoms are near based on that health.Miners have a breakeven cost for producing each Bitcoin, and when the spot price is lower than that cost, the danger arises that they will begin to “capitulate,” or cease operations due to a lack of profitability.