Hashrate

Hashrate is the measure of computational power used by a mining device or network to process and solve cryptographic puzzles per second. It represents how many hash calculations a miner can perform in one second.

Understanding Hashrate

In Bitcoin mining, every miner is essentially playing a guessing game. The goal is to find a specific number (a nonce) that, when combined with other block data and run through the SHA-256 hash function, produces a result below a certain threshold. Hashrate tells you how many guesses a miner can make each second.

Think of it like a lottery where you need to scratch tickets to find a winner. Your hashrate is the number of tickets you can scratch per second. The more tickets you scratch (the higher your hashrate), the better your chances of finding a winning ticket before anyone else.

Hashrate is measured in hashes per second (H/s), but modern mining equipment operates at much higher scales:

• KH/s (kilohash) = 1,000 hashes per second
• MH/s (megahash) = 1,000,000 hashes per second
• GH/s (gigahash) = 1,000,000,000 hashes per second
• TH/s (terahash) = 1,000,000,000,000 hashes per second
• PH/s (petahash) = 1,000,000,000,000,000 hashes per second
• EH/s (exahash) = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 hashes per second

Modern ASIC miners typically operate in the range of 100-300+ TH/s. The total Bitcoin network hashrate is measured in hundreds of EH/s.

Tip

A higher hashrate means more chances to find a valid block, which directly translates to higher potential earnings. However, higher hashrate also typically means higher power consumption, so efficiency (measured in J/TH — joules per terahash) is equally important.

Practical Example

If you own an Antminer S21 rated at 200 TH/s, your machine is making 200 trillion guesses every second. When connected to a mining pool, your hashrate determines the proportion of shares you contribute, and therefore your share of the pool’s earnings.

See also

• Difficulty
• Share
• ASIC
• Mining Pool