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Bitcoin turns thirteen! Emerging from the shadow of China's ban, hash rate hits new highs, industry insiders remain optimistic about reaching $100,000.

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Bitcoin turns thirteen! Emerging from the shadow of China

The Bitcoin genesis block was born on January 3, 2009. Despite the price remaining stagnant around the forty-thousand level, its hash rate has finally reached a new all-time high after the blow from China's ban. Cryptocurrency industry professionals have offered their blessings and made predictions about future price trends.

Bitcoin Genesis Block

Bitcoin started running in 2009, and its anonymous inventor Satoshi Nakamoto left the headline of the front page of The Times in the Bitcoin Genesis Block:

"January 3, 2009, Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

When Bitcoin's third block reward halving occurred in 2020, the largest mining pool, F2Pool, inserted the headline of The New York Times from April 9 into the Coinbase data of block height 629,999 as a tribute to Satoshi Nakamoto:

"The New York Times, April 9, 2020, injected $2.3 trillion, the Fed's relief plan far surpasses the 2008 rescue level."

Hashrate Reaches New High

Bitcoin's hashrate has continued to hit new highs since the third halving, reaching a peak of 198.51 EH/s on April 19 last year, and then plummeting to 57.47 EH/s due to a series of regulatory blows such as China's mining ban.

The Chinese ban forced a large number of miners to relocate. Bryan Bullett, CEO of New York-listed Bitcoin mining company Bit Digital, described the impact of China's regulatory crackdown on hashrate as a "historic hashrate fault."

He believed that the relocation of mining machines from China to overseas would take time, and the redeployment could be completed as early as Q3. The hashrate has been slowly recovering since hitting bottom in June last year, reaching a record high of 207.53 EH/s on January 1 and standing at 168.92 EH/s at the time of writing.

BTC Hashrate

Future Predictions

With hashrate returning to new highs, Bitcoin extremist Max Keizer predicts that Bitcoin will reach a sky-high price of $220,000 this year. In a recent interview, he emphasized that Bitcoin's fundamentals are gradually strengthening.

Nexo Founder: Predicts $100,000

Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of lending platform Nexo, predicted in a CNBC interview that the price of Bitcoin would reach $100,000 by mid-2022.

He emphasized his strong belief in Bitcoin, revealing that many mainstream companies are quietly buying Bitcoin as a reserve asset, which will be the main reason for boosting the price of Bitcoin, with inflation and low interest rates being secondary factors driving the rise.

He also mentioned the possibility of more countries adopting Bitcoin as legal tender:

I believe that certain countries in Latin America are facing economic challenges in managing fiat currencies and their central banks. Undoubtedly, they may follow El Salvador as potential candidates for adopting Bitcoin, and what surprises me the most is the significant progress Bitcoin has made in just 13 years.

President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele, who also previously predicted Bitcoin would reach $100,000, stated that Bitcoin is entering its adolescence and it will be an interesting journey.