A lot of people still oppose the concept of Bitcoin ash to this very day. The altcoin has nothing innovative nor does it benefit from a lot of economic support. Right now, it simply is the most profitable coin to mine for people who own SHA-256 ASIC machines. However, one can’t deny interesting things are afoot where BCH is concerned. After BTC.com, we now have the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool Antpool moving some hashpower to BCH. This is a pretty big development, to say the least.
Even though the Bitcoin Cash price might not look like it, the currency is still quite profitable. Especially for miners, as it generates over 100% more revenue compared to mining Bitcoin itself. How long that situation lasts, remains to be determined. Antpool, the world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, is jumping on the BCH chain. The company has mined a few blocks so far and is catching up to ViaBTC in this regard. It doesn’t appear Antpool is switching over all of their mining capacity, though.
Antpool Joins the Bitcoin Cash Mining Community
In fact, it appears the Bitcoin hashrate for Antpool hasn’t changed all that much. It is possible the company is just testing the waters where BCH is concerned. A more profitable coin makes a lot of sense, but they don’t want to anger their miners either. For now, it seems a minor portion of their mining power is switched to Bitcoin Cash. It will be interesting to see if this situation changes over the coming days.
A new mining difficulty adjustment should occur in a few days. It is evident the overall hashrate for this blockchain has increased quite a bit. It is well into the 1.6 Exohash/second range, according to Bitinfocharrts. That is quite a jump from the 400 petahash less than a week ago.However, given the current lowered difficulty, that isn’t surprising. Every miner wants to maximize their earnings. The best way to do so right now is by mining BCH over BTC.
Based on the current network statistics, things aren’t looking all that bad. Over 550 blocks have been mined in the past 24 hours, with an average of 23 per hour. That is a rather high number, though. All of these blocks also come with the same block reward of 12.5 BCH. At this rate, we should see a block reward reduction as well in the not-so-distant future. Otherwise, people will just keep mining coins and driving the price down across all exchanges without too much resistance. An intriguing ecosystem, this “altcoin” of Bitcoin. No one knows for sure what its real value is right now, though.
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