Bitcoin network hashrate always declined in summer time. This year it might get even worse.
Summer heatwaves can have a deep impact on Bitcoin mining. Miners have to deal with the excessive heat throughout whole year, but with global warming becoming more prominent the problem gets pretty serious.
Halving that occurred earlier this year has already made its impact on miners. With their profits cut twice miners see much less profit in maintaining network's functionality. Miners have to be looking for more contemporary, energy efficient equipment. Hashrate needs to be raising all the time.
Heatwaves might be a specifically harsh problem this year.
As we all know, miners use extremely powerful machines (ASICs) that give off a lot of heat as a result of their computations. They can reach very high temperatures without proper cooling measures in place. So, to ensure their ASICs are safe, miners might have to resort to turning them off periodically to let them cool down.
Energy consumers around them will be turning their air conditioning more frequently and that additional demand might hurt miners also.
37% of all world mining operations are located in the U.S. Most part of it - in steamy Texas.
That might reflect on hashrate and create "jams" in blockchain network traffic. Faster Bitcoin transaction will require higher mining fees.
Some analysts note that the hashrate has already started to come down since reaching an all-time high in March. In June it is 10% lower than it was a month earlier.