Ethereum hashrate hit a new all-time high amid DeFi growth
Ethereum's hashrate, or the network's processing power, hit a new all-time high yesterday amid continuous growth in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.
The hashrate increased to more than 254,000 GH/s (Giga hash per second) on October 6 as compared to the previous all-time high of 248,000 GH/s in August 2018, according to The Block Research. Meanwhile, the price of ether (ETH) hovers around $350 for about the last month.
The new all-time high figure of hashrate shows that more Ethereum miners are queuing up to mint ETH, which plays a central role in interacting with DeFi protocols built on Ethereum. ETH is used to pay for gas fees or transaction costs.
The high gas fees also attract more Ethereum miners to the network as it helps them make higher revenue. Last month, for the first time in Ethereum's history, Ethereum miners made more money from gas fees than from block rewards.
The higher hashrate also helps to make blockchain networks more secure as it becomes more costly to 51% attack them.