What comes first, the price rising or the hash rate increasing?

That seems to be the age old question that many crypto/bitcoin investors seem to ponder on an almost weekly basis.

Especially as they see the hash rate continuing to climb higher and higher and higher.

Even with bitcoin losing the $10k support several weeks back, the hash rate has hardly budged:

(Source: https://bitcoinist.com/watching-network-activity-can-help-predict-bitcoin-btc-price/)

So, which is it?

It's kind of one of those 'chicken or the egg' debates, well sort of.

Looking at a longer term chart, we can see that the hash rate has mostly only gone up.

Well, the price of bitcoin has mostly only gone up as well, so that may not tell us all that much.

But...

If we overlay the hash rate over a price chart, it becomes a little more telling...

Check it out:

(Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoin-hash-rate-predicts-btc-140058221.html)

First, I will admit this isn't the easiest chart to read, but you should be able to see the overall trend.

And that trend looks like the hash rate may be leading the price.

We can see it start to go up before the price starts to go up as well.

Hmm...

Now that is interesting!

Just from thinking out loud here, in my opinion one of two things is about to happen...

I don't think electricity has magically all the sudden gotten cheaper for miners (though mining rigs are getting more efficient), so I think we are either about to see the price catch up to the hash rate, going over $20k shortly... or we are going to see miners drop out as they can no longer operate at a net loss.

Going to be an exciting next several months as we get closer and closer to the next halving which is slated to be in May of next year.

Stay informed my friends.

-Doc