Ethereum's hash rate rebounds to new highs during NFT summer

Ethereum's hash rate has broken above 600 TH/s for the first time — on a seven-day moving average — according to The Block's Data Dashboard. It has now returned to break new highs following a significant dip in July.

Ethereum's hash rate all but touched the 600 TH/s mark in May when the network was accelerating quickly. But a crackdown on bitcoin mining in China — which extended to Ethereum but with less impact — led to a big fall in the following months. The hash rate dropped as low as 465 TH/s by July.

Yet with miners moving their equipment outside of China — or selling it to other miners at lower prices — some of this hash rate may have started coming back online, alongside growth in other countries. As a result, the hash rate has returned to its former high.

This comes as the hype around NFTs has reached fever pitch with digital rocks selling for millions of dollars and fractionalized NFTs reaching outrageous implied valuations. This has resulted in higher blockchain activity, alongside the myriad of decentralized finance and other use cases that already exist.

For context, Bitcoin's hash rate has recovered considerably since China's crackdown, up 50% since lows in July. But it still a long way off from reclaiming its former peak of 179 EH/s.