Hash Rate

What Does Hash Rate Mean?

A hash rate in blockchain and cryptocurrency operations is defined as the number of hash operations done in a given amount of time, or the speed of a miner’s performance. The hash rate is an important factor in the logistics of cryptocurrency mining and blockchain operations, and something that is often evaluated and discussed in cryptocurrency communities.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Hash Rate

One of the most common measurements of hash rate is called “hash per second” and represents the number of SHA-256 algorithms that are performed per second. SHA-256 is a hash algorithm that takes a block of information and converts it to a hash, in a system that is comparable to various types of compression systems. It can be thought of this way – as the miners are mining the block, they generate strings of text that the SHA-256 algorithm works on and converts into hashes. That condenses the information that represents the block. Then, by counting the number of times that SHA-256 hashes a string of data, one gets the hash rate.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Related Reading

Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…