Has Litecoin Hashrate Bottomed?
It has been a painful previous couple of months for the crypto markets with even Bitcoin falling greater than 50% from its $14,000 peak and Litecoin down over 66% from its latest halving in August. In consequence the community hashrate has seen an identical fall from a peak of over 500TH/s to now resting at 150TH/s (-77%).
Based on information from BitInfoCharts, Litecoin hashrate is at the moment precisely the place it was in December of final 12 months at what many imagine was the final word backside of this market cycle. Again then the market worth was half what it’s now however with the mining reward having simply been halved it makes good sense why hashrate is the place it at the moment is. The query now could be, will it make a decrease low or has it fashioned a double backside and due a powerful rebound?
Whereas Hashrate just isn’t a dependable indicator of worth actions because it follows quite than leads on this respect, some are speculating it’s a sturdy indication particularly contemplating the latest draw back the market has seen.
Because the hashrate and safety of the community continues to drop, fear has unfold that this may depart litecoin extra susceptible to a 51% assault, the place a foul actor(s) controls a majority of the community and is ready to drive modifications on the community. The probability of that is impossible nevertheless, on condition that Litecoin is the king of Scrypt the algorithm used for mining, as such these trying to assault it must pay a big price which isn’t economically viable and they might be unlikely to make something from such an assault.
Mining swimming pools could seem like a single entity, nevertheless, people are free to return and go from swimming pools which act maliciously so once more there may be little to no incentive to assault the community even when the hashrate is that this low. That’s after all assuming they even may to start with. Based on present information from Nicehash the biggest market for renting hash energy there may be solely ~2 – 5TH/s value of Scrypt mining energy accessible to lease, or about 3% of the present energetic community.
Litecoin Group member and moderator ‘TheHoliestRoger’ shared a few of his insights through telegram:
“ I do know a LOT of people that’ve stopped mining LTC because it’s now not worthwhile for them. Nearly all of them have merely switched their miners off, some have put them on eBay, and a really small quantity have began mining shitcoins. For my part the switched off hashrate is effectively distributed and never managed by a single entity. The factor to be careful for can be rentable scrypt hashrate from miningrigrentals or nicehash for instance. Which isn’t near 51% but from what I can see.”