Litecoin’s falling hash rate is a worrying sign

The Litecoin network is rapidly becoming less secure. Since the new amount of Litecoin being mined was cut in half on August 5, the network’s hash rate—computing power that protects the network from attack—has similarly fallen.

Every four years, Litecoin undergoes a halving, where the mining rewards that cryptocurrency miners receive for mining new blocks get cut in half—it’s the same with Bitcoin. However, when this happens, it means that miners receive less money when mining new blocks—making it uneconomical to continue spending computational resources earning new coins. While Litecoin founder Charlie Lee argued that miners would continue protecting the network, the miners had other ideas.

Since the latest mining block rewards decline, the total hash rate on the Litecoin mining network has dropped over 60 percent from around 500 TH/s to its current level of just 193 TH/s. It is heading rapidly towards its lowest point since March 2018—at 146 TH/s.

While this…