Bitcoin's hashrate has reached an all-time high

Currently, the hashrate stands at 527 EH/s, exceeding half a zettahash per second (Zx/s) and equivalent to 527 quintillion hashes per second. Over the past 90 days, the average hashrate fluctuated around 462 EH/s, with the latest 2016 blocks showing an average of 496.8 EH/s.

Luxor's data also indicates that the three-day SMA (simple moving average) of the hashrate peaked at 539 EH/s. As block time currently fluctuates between 8 minutes 47 seconds and 9 minutes 31 seconds, processing occurs faster than the standard 10-minute average.

This increase in hashrate contributes to reducing block intervals and is likely to lead to a mining difficulty increase from 3.11% to 5.2%. 

Presently, approximately 49 mining pools contribute to the BTC network, with Foundry USA leading over the past three days, surpassing Antpool. Foundry USA boasts 164.24 EH/s, constituting 31.76% of the total hashrate. Meanwhile, Antpool has 126.51 EH/s, or 24.46% of the overall share. Together, both pools controlled over 56.22% of Bitcoin's total hashrate as of December 20, 2023.

In December of this year, Bitcoin miners have already surpassed previous records in annual fee income.

In November, Bitcoin transaction fees brought miners a record $142 million, but in December, they have already collected $202 million. Furthermore, the total income this month from block rewards and transfer fees has reached $953 million. High-priority transaction fees still exceed $15.

Currently, there are over 300,000 pending transactions in the mempool. Processing unconfirmed transactions requires a total of 359 blocks.