74.48% of the bitcoin network hashrate is controlled by six mining pools, half of which are “directly or indirectly” controlled by the Chinese company Bitmain. This is stated in the new report of the ChainDD portal.

In particular, BTC.com accounts for 21.35% of the network hashrate, 13.97% for Antpool and 10.51% for ViaBTC, which Bitmain once invested in.

Thus, even a reduction in the price of Bitcoin did not lead to the decentralization of hash capacities, analysts say.

“Large mining companies can maintain a high level of computing power even in a bear market, because they have an advantage in the matter of the cost of electricity and equipment,” the researchers added.

The record of the average daily amount of extracted bitcoins was recorded in January 2018, when the miners received 2038 BTC. The minimum was in November – 1612 BTC per day, which may be due to the hard forks Bitcoin Cash .

In general, in 2018, the bitcoin hash rate increased by 173%. During this period, the complexity of mining changed 27 times. On December 5, 2018, the second largest decline in complexity in the history of Bitcoin was 15.13% . The first – by 18.03% – took place on October 31, 2011.

Recall that in early February, the bitcoin hash rate reached 50 EH / s .

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