14th CryptoSuper500 Report Releases: Bitcoin's Evolution into a Global Supercomputer
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MENLO PARK, Calif. - Washingtoner -- OrionX Research today released the fourteenth edition of its CryptoSuper500 list. The list recognizes cryptocurrency mining as a supercomputing-class application, tracks the top mining pools, and offers a snapshot of the cryptocurrency industry. The CryptoSuper500 was developed by Dr. Stephen Perrenod, OrionX Partner and noted crypto analyst who is also known for a top-ranking Bitcoin evaluation model that he created.

With 16 years of history behind it, and increasing acceptance globally, Bitcoin is now a two trillion-dollar asset, available for sale through various exchanges, as well as Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) from traditional financial institutions. The fourth halving of the block reward was in April 2024, and 19.87 million bitcoins have now been issued out of the 21 million maximum supply. Bitcoin's hash rate and price have both increased by a factor of more than 16 since the first CryptoSuper500 report in November 2018.  Hash rate per second is the standard metric for the computational power of bitcoin miners, just as floating point operations per second (flops) are the metric in the HPC/AI world.

"Bitcoin is produced by a special purpose global decentralized supercomputer, the world's largest, of the scale of several million ASIC servers," said Dr. Stephen Perrenod. "Among proof-of-work coins that use significant computational power, only Bitcoin and Dogecoin make the cut, and Bitcoin's $18 billion of annual production, a new record in value created, is nearly 95% of the total."

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The world's fastest centralized supercomputer, El Capitan at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has a peak performance of 2.79 exaflops and a measured rating of 1.74 exaflops. The Bitcoin network, by contrast, has over 900 Exahashes per second of sustained computational power fueled by several million ASIC-based mining systems.

As with traditional supercomputers, energy efficiency is an important parameter for Bitcoin. As a gross estimate exercise, if one were to build the current Bitcoin global hash power from the latest high end Whatsminer 63S Hydro systems it would require over 192 thousand water cooled cabinets (located around the world) with a total weight of 134 megatons and a power requirement of 17 GigaWatts. According to the CCAF at the University of Cambridge the current electricity usage of the Bitcoin network is roughly 21 GigaWatts, over half of which is from sustainable sources.

Bitcoin electricity input has become greener over the years as miners seek lower energy costs and renewable sources of energy and can locate mining facilities at the source of energy, a move that is increasingly common for large scale AI data centers. Bitcoin energy input is now expected to be greener than average and commonly provides grid load-balancing since its usage can be changed quickly as required.

The report also highlights that Bitcoin mining is a brutally competitive business, a Red Queen** style race that requires rapid equipment upgrades due to increasing difficulty of the cryptographic problem and regular halvings of the reward. Miners must account for ever-faster machines coming onto the marketplace and ever more mining rigs around the world, both of which contribute to the rapidly rising growth in hashrate and difficulty.

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In the report, the top 10 publicly traded mining companies, with the majority of their hashrate located in North America, are responsible for one quarter of Bitcoin's global hashing and Bitcoin production. They minted 23% of all new Bitcoin during April 2025.

In 2018 roughly 2/3 of mining hash rate was in China. Since the Chinese mining ban in mid 2021 the US has become the leading source of mining hash rate. Over a dozen publicly traded venture funded mining companies, which mine for themselves and also host ASIC equipment for customers, boast a collective market cap of $17 billion.

Finally, the report discusses that as Bitcoin regulation has become increasingly clarified its adoption continues apace by the public and increasingly also by governments and institutions. The funding of the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, beginning with 207,000 confiscated Bitcoin being relocated to the Treasury from the Justice Department, is the most important move by a government to date.

The first CryptoSuper500 report was released six and a half years ago in November 2018. All fourteen reports are available on the OrionX website without requiring registration or payment.

About OrionX
OrionX is a Silicon Valley consulting firm offering Technology Research, Market Execution, and Customer Engagement services to high tech companies. More than 70 technology leaders and financial institutions in virtually every technology segment have trusted OrionX to provide advice, help set new break-away strategies, ignite brands, and grow market share. Visit us at OrionX.net.

* Note: This effort is an analysis of the technologies and trends surrounding blockchain and cryptocurrencies. It is not, and must not be considered as, financial, investment, or legal advice.

** "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place" - the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll.