Roger Ver almost stops mining BCH following halving

• Bitcoin Cash saw its hashrate drop dramatically following the recent halving, bringing its network security to all-time lows. 
• The halving took the mining reward from 12.5 to 6.25 BCH (~ $1,600) every ten minutes.
• CEO Roger Ver is finding it difficult to keep his mining operations going in the face of such a dramatic reward reduction.

Following the recent halving, Bitcoin Cash witnessed its hashrate plummet dramatically, bringing its network security to all-time lows. Even the mining pool operated by Roger Ver, Bitcoin.com, almost completely stopped mining BCH. 

The recent Bitcoin Cash halving took the mining reward from 12.5 to 6.25 BCH, about $3,200 to $1,600, every ten minutes. Though some crypto community members expected the coin’s price to react strongly to the event, prices actually increased, leading up to the halving, rising by over 17% since April 5. However, miners on the network reacted much differently. As soon as the network hit block 630,000, there was a 109-minute gap between blocks. This is ten times more than the normal ten-minute block time before the network adjusted the mining difficulty. As a result, transactions on the network came to a halt during that time.

This seems to be a direct result of the network’s hashrate drop, a consequence of fewer dollars allocated to mining. As per CoinWarz data, the Bitcoin Cash hashrate plummeted from four exahashes per second on April 8 to below one exahash on April 9. This marks a significant reduction.

BCH hashrate could have dropped further if it hadn’t been for a few mining pools operating at a loss to maintain the network, according to some sources. Some speculate that the Bitmain-owned BTC.com, the largest mining pool on the Bitcoin Cash network, is responsible for the majority of the hashrate. Blockchair data indicates that BTC.com mined 20 out of 36 blocks produced since the halving (56% of the blocks). 

Several other mining pools saw hashrate reductions as well. AntPool and Poolin saw a 65% and 44% drop in hashrate, respectively. Data also shows that Bitcoin.com has also been operating at a massive loss. The hashrate of Bitcoin.com, which operated by the Bitcoin Cash exchange, dropped by more than 92% in just 24 hours.