Bitcoin Hits 52 Quintillion Hashes Per Second: So Why The Slump?

Markets are falling, and ETFs are going nowhere fast, but that hasn’t stopped the Bitcoin network from growing. Earlier this week, the global network reached a new record: 52 quintillion hashes per second. 

It’s hard to imagine a number with eighteen zeros after it. That’s equivalent to nearly four million of Bitmain’s latest S9i miners working overtime. For those who love zeroes, it really is 52,000,000,000,000,000,000.

In other words, solving a Bitcoin block in one attempt would be like being asked to find a specific grain of sand, somewhere in the world, and guessing correctly on the first try… then sitting down to play poker with Annie Duke and catching four aces on your first hand.

It’s especially impressive considering how recently Bitcoin broke the ceiling of one quintillion hashes per second— only two years ago.

But that raises an interesting question: if mining is increasing why is the price collapsing? It doesn’t take an economist to know that mining…