coindesk.com
Bitcoin (BTC) is consolidating recent gains alongside a record hashrate that suggests high miner confidence in the cryptocurrency’s price prospects.
- The top cryptocurrency is currently trading largely unchanged on the day near $11,400, CoinDesk data shows.
- Prices clocked a high of $11,723 on Monday, having crossed into bullish territory above $11,200 over the weekend.
- The bitcoin breather comes as seven-day average of the cryptocurrency's hashrate – a measure of the processing power dedicated to securing and recording blocks on the network – rose to a record high of 144.29 exahashes per second (EH/s) on Tuesday.
- That surpasses the previous peak of 143.19 EH/s observed on Sept. 18, according to data source Glassnode.
- Arcane Research said in a tweet that the record hashrate is a sign bitcoin's fundamentals are stronger than ever.
- Hashrate has increased by nearly 40% this year, despite the "halving" event in May that cut miner rewards by half.
- A rising hashrate suggests increasing confidence among miners about the economic viability of operations – in effect more mining machines are coming online as companies invest in the technology.
- Miners largely operate on cash and liquidate their BTC holdings to fund operations. As such, they are likely to dedicate more resources to the computer-intensive mining process if they are bullish on price.
- The options market is also aligned for a bullish move, as noted by crypto derivatives research firm Skew.
- Bitcoin's call options, or bullish bets, expiring in one, three, and six-months are drawing higher prices than the put options, or bearish bets.
- Analysts expect the cryptocurrency to tests the psychological hurdle of $12,000 in the near term.
- On the downside, support is seen at $11,000, followed by the February high of $10,500.
Also read: Bitcoin Eyes $12K Price After 6-Day Streak of Gains