Chinese cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain’s hashrate has noticeably dropped in the past 30 days, according to the company’s hashrate disclosure update as of May 7.
Per the data analyzing the hashrate of all Bitmain-owned hardware, updated once every 30 days, the SHA256 hashing algorithm — which is used in the bitcoin (BTC) mining network — has dropped from 1,692.35 quadrillion hashes per second (PH/s) in March to 237.29 PH/s as of the beginning of May. This marks a noticeable downturn in the company’s bitcoin mining power.
When comparing with Bitmain’s numbers of last year, In July 2018, Bitmain’s SHA256 hashrate was 1,692.05 PH/s, registering an upstick to 2,339.21 PH/s three months later, in October.
As previously reported, the two mining pools operated by Bitmain, Antpool and BTC.com, contributed to almost 23% of the total hashing power of the entire bitcoin mining pool as of January 2019. However, six months earlier the company’s mining pools represented 41% of the market share, meaning that its share has been steadily declining.
In February, a report from Canadian wealth management company Canaccord claimed that mining became more decentralized and continues to diversify. At the time, however, the largest stakeholder still remained Antpool, the report notes. Data from Blockchain.com currently puts Antpool’s share at 16.4%, while Bitaps suggests it is closer to 17.1%.
In late March, Bitmain allegedly hinted that the release of its new mining hardware could hinge on the 2020 bitcoin block reward halving, saying that next year’s event could reverse its fortunes. In May 2020, the reward size will decrease from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC per block. In line with previous patterns, some predict a bitcoin price surge ahead of the halving — possibly beginning around June 2019.
“Bitmain is now betting that its next flagship product scheduled to be released by the end of this year will turn out to be a winner in the mining gear market, capturing an expected rally,” an unnamed source close to Bitmain reportedly said.