<p>AFAIK there's no limit set by the Bitcoin network protocol. It obviously affects the network difficulty / target but I believe the upper bound of difficulty represents an extraordinarily high hashrate.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty#What_is_the_maximum_difficulty.3F" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty#What_is_the_maximum_difficulty.3F</a> says</p>
<blockquote>
<h2>What is the maximum difficulty?</h2>
<p>There is no minimum target. The maximum difficulty is roughly: maximum_target / 1 (since 0 would result in infinity), which is a ridiculously huge number (about 2^224).</p>
<p>The actual maximum difficulty is when current_target=0, but we would not be able to calculate the difficulty if that happened. (fortunately it never will, so we're ok.)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That link also shows you how to convert that maximum non-infinite difficulty number to a hashrate. I think that gives you around 5 x 10<sup>141</sup> (an exahash is a tiny 10<sup>18</sup>)</p>
<p>The difference in security between 175 and 275 EH/s really depends on the available amount of unused hashpower as much as on the deployed hashpower.</p>
<p>Note that hash <em>rate</em> is measured in EH/s not EH.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-05-20T10:15:09.383Z
2022-05-20T10:22:55.190Z
2022-05-20T10:22:55.190Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>Is there an upper limit on the amount of hash rate for Bitcoin's Proof of Work? Is there a big difference security-wise going from 175 EH to 275 EH?</p>

<mining-theory><hashpower>
Upper limit on BTC PoW hash rate?
tc71
# Upper limit on BTC PoW hash rate?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-05-20)

Is there an upper limit on the amount of hash rate for Bitcoin's Proof of Work? Is there a big difference security-wise going from 175 EH to 275 EH?

**Tags:** mining-theory, hashpower


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2022-05-20. Score: 1

AFAIK there's no limit set by the Bitcoin network protocol. It obviously affects the network difficulty / target but I believe the upper bound of difficulty represents an extraordinarily high hashrate.

<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty#What_is_the_maximum_difficulty.3F> says

> ## What is the maximum difficulty?
>
> There is no minimum target. The maximum difficulty is roughly: maximum\_target / 1 (since 0 would result in infinity), which is a ridiculously huge number (about 2^224).
>
> The actual maximum difficulty is when current\_target=0, but we would not be able to calculate the difficulty if that happened. (fortunately it never will, so we're ok.)

That link also shows you how to convert that maximum non-infinite difficulty number to a hashrate. I think that gives you around 5 x 10141 (an exahash is a tiny 1018)

The difference in security between 175 and 275 EH/s really depends on the available amount of unused hashpower as much as on the deployed hashpower.

Note that hash *rate* is measured in EH/s not EH.


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