#Binance
MINING AND THE HASHING RACE
(B)
As the amount of hashing power applied to mining bitcoin has exploded, the diffi‐
culty has risen to match it. The difficulty metric in the chart shown in Figure 10-8 is
measured as a ratio of current difficulty over minimum difficulty (the difficulty of the
first block).
In the last two years, the ASIC mining chips have become increasingly denser,
approaching the cutting edge of silicon fabrication with a feature size (resolution) of
16 nanometers (nm). Currently, ASIC manufacturers are aiming to overtake general-
purpose CPU chip manufacturers, designing chips with a feature size of 14 nm,
because the profitability of mining is driving this industry even faster than general
computing. There are no more giant leaps left in bitcoin mining, because the industry
has reached the forefront of Moore’s Law, which stipulates that computing density
will double approximately every 18 months. Still, the mining power of the network
continues to advance at an exponential pace as the race for higher density chips is
matched with a race for higher density data centers where thousands of these chips
can be deployed. It’s no longer about how much mining can be done with one chip,
but how many chips can be squeezed into a building, while still dissipating the heat
and providing adequate power.
