What is Hash Power or Hash Rate

 

What is Hash Power or Hash Rate?

 

Source: BI Magazine

Interchangeably used, hash power/hash rate is the term used to describe the combined computation power of a specific cryptocurrency network or the power of an individual mining machine on that network.

For example, in Bitcoin, the network of miners contributes the computational power to process the transactions and mint new coins. They mining rigs use the power/hash to calculate

Cryptographic hashes (pseudorandom data string that are used to prevent double spending).

Different devices such as CPUs, GPUs, and ASICs will differ in their computational hash power/hash rate.

Hash Rate is the computing power of your mining rig measured in Hashes generated Per Second, and is the speed at which a given rig solves a problem.

The hashing algorithm used by each and every coin varies and so the hash rate is. For example, Ethereum uses Ethash algorithm (a modified version of Dagger-Hashimoto) and its difficulty is measured in Hashes. Similarly, Zcash uses Equihash algorithm and its difficulty is measured in Sol/s (Solution Per Second). 

Hash Rate Unit	Hashes Per Second (in figure)	Hashes Per Second (in words)
1 kH/s	1,000	One Thousand
1 MH/s	1,000,000	One Million
1 GH/s	1,000,000,000	One Billion
1 TH/s	1,000,000,000,000	One Trillion
1 PH/s	1,000,000,000,000,000	One Quadrillion
1 EH/s	1,000,000,000,000,000,000	One Quintillion
1 ZH/s	1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000	One Sextillion

Note: Except the symbol of k in kH/s, all bigger units have ‘capital letters’ such as KH/s, MHs, and so on.