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@ -1739,44 +1739,8 @@ chips specialized for the purpose of mining. The first such chips could
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deliver more mining power in a single box than the entire Bitcoin
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network in 2010.
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The following list shows the total hashing power of the Bitcoin network,
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over the first eight years of operation:
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2009:: 0.5 MH/sec–8 MH/sec (16× growth)
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2010:: 8 MH/sec–116 GH/sec (14,500× growth)
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2011:: 116 GH/sec–9 TH/sec (78× growth)
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2012:: 9 TH/sec–23 TH/sec (2.5× growth)
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2013:: 23 TH/sec–10 PH/sec (450× growth)
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2014:: 10 PH/sec–300 PH/sec (30× growth)
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2015:: 300 PH/sec-800 PH/sec (2.66× growth)
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2016:: 800 PH/sec-2.5 EH/sec (3.12× growth)
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In the chart in <<network_hashing_power>>, we can see that Bitcoin
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network's hashing power increased over the past two years. As you can
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see, the competition between miners and the growth of bitcoin has
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resulted in an exponential increase in the hashing power (total hashes
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per second across the network).
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[[network_hashing_power]]
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.Total hashing power, terahashes per second (TH/sec)
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image::images/mbc2_1007.png["NetworkHashingRate"]
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As the amount of hashing power applied to mining bitcoin has exploded,
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the difficulty has risen to match it. The difficulty metric in the chart
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shown in <<bitcoin_difficulty>> is measured as a ratio of current
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difficulty over minimum difficulty (the difficulty of the first block).
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[[bitcoin_difficulty]]
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.Bitcoin's mining difficulty metric
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image::images/mbc2_1008.png["BitcoinDifficulty"]
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In the last two years, the ASIC mining chips have become increasingly
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denser, approaching the cutting edge of silicon fabrication with a
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feature size (resolution) of 16 nanometers (nm). Currently, ASIC
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manufacturers are aiming to overtake general-purpose CPU chip
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manufacturers, designing chips with a feature size of 14 nm, because the
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profitability of mining is driving this industry even faster than
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general computing. There are no more giant leaps left in bitcoin mining,
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At the time of writing, it is believed that there are no more giant
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leaps left in Bitcoin mining equipment,
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because the industry has reached the forefront of Moore's Law, which
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stipulates that computing density will double approximately every 18
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months. Still, the mining power of the network continues to advance at
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David A. Harding
1 year ago