Bitcoin [BTC]: Yes, a mining hashrate all-time high, but at what cost

ambcrypto.com:

Bitcoin [BTC] investors may finally have something to rejoice about. Amidst the general downturn in the global financial markets and a consequential collapse of the cryptocurrency market, one thing remained consistent. BTC’s hashrate continued to grow despite tough times in the crypto market. 

According to data from blockchain analytics platform Messari, Bitcoin’s hashrate, on 1 October, rallied to a high of 282 MH/s. At press time, the mining hashrate on the network stood at 245 MH/s.

Glassnode, in a new report, noted that the new all-time high could be denoted as 242 Exahash per second. For context, “this is equivalent to all 7.753 Billion people on earth, each completing a SHA-256 hash calculation approximately 30 Billion times every second,” the on-chain analytics platform stated. 

Source: Glassnode

In assessing the mining activity on the network, Glassnode, in its report, considered the network’s hash ribbons. It found that Bitcoin’s hash-ribbon started to “unwind” around August-end, which suggested an improvement in mining conditions on the Bitcoin network.

Historically, Glassnode found that this was usually followed by a rally in the price of the leading coin. 

However, Glassnode noted that with a continued decline in the price per BTC, the recent rally in hashrate on the network was attributable to “more efficient mining hardware coming online and/or miners with superior balance sheets having a larger share of the hash power network.”

Source: Glassnode

Additionally, Glassnode also assessed the Mining Pulse metric. This metric, according to Glassnode, is used to track miner activity. It measures the average block interval relative to the target of 600-seconds. 

A look at Bitcoin’s Mining Pulse revealed that there was a