Hashrate measures the total computational power used by miners to process and secure a proof-of-work blockchain network.
Hashrate is the heartbeat of every proof-of-work blockchain. It measures how many hash calculations the network performs per second — the higher the hashrate, the more secure the network. For Bitcoin, hashrate has grown from a few thousand hashes per second in 2009 to over 600 exahashes per second (EH/s) in 2026.
When miners compete to add the next block to the blockchain, they're essentially running a lottery — guessing random numbers (nonces) until they find one that produces a hash meeting the network's difficulty requirement. Each guess is one "hash." Hashrate is the number of guesses per second.
Units: H/s (hashes per second), KH/s (kilo, thousands), MH/s (mega, millions), GH/s (giga, billions), TH/s (tera, trillions), PH/s (peta, quadrillions), EH/s (exa, quintillions). A modern Bitcoin ASIC miner produces about 100-400 TH/s. The entire Bitcoin network exceeds 600 EH/s.
Hashrate directly correlates with network security. Higher hashrate means more computing power is needed to attack the network (51% attack). Bitcoin's enormous hashrate makes it virtually impossible to attack — you'd need hardware worth billions of dollars and electricity costs that would bankrupt most nations.
For miners, hashrate determines profitability. Your share of the total network hashrate determines your probability of finding a block and earning the reward. If you contribute 1% of total hashrate, you'll find approximately 1% of blocks over time. This is why most miners join mining pools — to smooth out the variance.
Difficulty and hashrate are closely related but different. Difficulty is a parameter that adjusts every 2,016 Bitcoin blocks (~2 weeks) to ensure blocks are found approximately every 10 minutes. When hashrate increases (more miners join), difficulty increases proportionally. When hashrate drops (miners leave), difficulty decreases. This self-adjusting mechanism keeps block times consistent regardless of how many miners are active.
You can monitor Bitcoin's hashrate in real-time on sites like Blockchain.com, Glassnode, or CoinWarz. Sudden drops in hashrate can signal miner capitulation (selling pressure) or regional bans (like China's 2021 mining ban, which caused a 50% hashrate drop). Hashrate recovery after drops historically correlates with price recovery.
Understanding hashrate helps you evaluate the security and health of proof-of-work networks. Trade PoW coins like Bitcoin and Litecoin on EIDEX with confidence.