The Bitcoin (BTC) network hash rate remains near all-time highs despite fresh turmoil in China as floods wipe out mining operators.
Bitcoin mining farm “devastated”
As various Twitter users reported on Aug. 20, the rainy season in China’s northwestern Sichuan province has spelled disaster for at least one Bitcoin mining farm.
According to cryptocurrency mining pool Poolin, the fourth-largest active pool on the Bitcoin network, the floods completely destroyed the farm — leaving workers to rescue equipment from the silt left by the floodwaters.
“A local mining farm based in Sichuan, China was DEVASTATED by the recent heavy rainfall in the region,” officials wrote on Twitter.
Red Li, co-founder of China-focused crypto media outlet 8btc, added further photographic evidence of the floods, while noting the events had not impacted Bitcoin network performance.
“It seems that the hashrate is not affected much,” he summarized. Another Twitter account claimed mining giant Bitmain was also unaffected.
Mild compared to 2018 floods
As Cointelegraph reported, BTC’s performance fell dramatically in July 2018 when major floods claimed mining hardware. As miners went offline, activity decreased along with Bitcoin’s price, sparking a trough which at its lowest saw BTC/USD fall to just $3,100.
Since then, a rebirth has seen competition return, with the hash rate — the number of calculations that a given network can perform each second — consistently reaching record highs throughout 2019.
According to data from monitoring resource BitInfoCharts, the hash rate stood at 79 quintillion hashes per second on Wednesday, with commentator Max Keiser forecasting that BTC prices would react as a result.