Two Bitcoin Mining Pools Control Over 50% of BTC Hash Power

On the evening of December 28, 2022, the Bitcoin (BTC) network’s computational processing power increased to a range of 300 EH/s. Three days before the spike, Texas-based bitcoin miners reduced their hash power, relieving the grid of any extra strain. As a result, BTC’s hashrate dropped to a low of 170 EH/s.

Since yesterday’s climb to 240 EH/s was reported, the majority of the SHA256 hash power recovered that day. Statistics on Thursday show that the entire network hashrate is cruising along at 250.57 EH/s after Wednesday’s leap above 300 EH/s. Two mining pools have also controlled more than 50% of the network’s total hashrate during the last three days.

Naturally, this has led to criticism of the network and claims of centralization this week. As of December 29, Antpool controls 21.87% of the current 250.57 EH/s, while the Foundry USA mining pool holds 31.45% of the total hashrate (ET). Together, Antpool and Foundry own 53.32% of the total hashrate for Bitcoin.

Four Bitcoin Mining Pools Control About 77% of Hashrate Sparking Centralization Worries

Meanwhile, on December 29, Viabtc and F2pool had 14.25% and 9.34% of the total hashrate, respectively. Foundry, Antpool, and F2pool together account for about 67.57% of the total hashrate, while all four mining pools that use Viabtc have controlled about 76.91% of it for the last three days. The BTC chain receives SHA256 hashrate from only 12 recognized mining pools, while unidentified miners account for 5.64 EH/s, or 2.46%, of the worldwide network.

On December 19, 2022, at block height 768,096, the mining difficulty for the Bitcoin network increased by 3.27%. On January 3, 2023, the network’s difficulty adjustment is anticipated to noticeably decrease. According to current projections, the difficulty reduction could be 7.39–8.1% lower than the current difficulty metric.