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Implied Mining Power — ZEC vs BTC

Electrical demand implied by each network’s hash rate, plotted against COINS ISSUED rather than date. At the same calendar moment Bitcoin is 16 years into its schedule and Zcash 10, so a date axis compares two different stages of maturity; aligning on supply asks what Bitcoin’s network was drawing when it had mined as many coins as Zcash has now. Both chains cap at 21M, which is what makes the alignment mean anything. Bitcoin’s hash rate comes from blockchain.info in TH/s; Zcash’s is derived from block difficulty. Both are converted using CURRENT-generation ASIC efficiency — 17.5 J/TH for SHA-256 (Antminer S21) and 1.96 mJ/Sol for Equihash 200,9 (Antminer Z15 Pro). That means these figures answer "what would this hash rate draw on TODAY’s hardware", NOT what the network actually drew at the time: early Bitcoin ran on machines orders of magnitude worse, so its real historical draw was far higher. Modelling the efficiency curve of a fleet nobody has an inventory of would stack a large unverifiable estimate on top, and one stated basis is easier to reason about than a fitted one. Log y-axis; the same figures feed the Mining energy @ equal issuance line on the Activity-Implied Market Cap chart.

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