The unit of measurement of the computing power of a blockchain network is known as its hash power or hash rate. This term is used to define the combined power of a particular crypto network or the power of the mining rig present on that network.

The operation of mining for any crypto asset is done by the network miners which can be individuals or organizations contributing to the computational power of mining rigs for processing transactions as well as generating new coins. This is done by calculating cryptographic hashes. The number of hashes that a mining rig can calculate every second is known as its hash rate. The total sum of the hash power of the crypto networks is the sum of the various hash rates of all the mining rigs operating on the network at a given point in time.

Various devices have different hash rates which completely depend on their computational power as well as the tasks they do. CPUs, GPUs, and ASICs all have different hash rates. The hash rate of a device acts as the key metric to measure the profitability of the mining setup since it is the one that helps in generating mining rewards. The hash rate of a crypto network also denotes the security of the coin. Hackers must overpower the total hash power of the network in order to attack it. Therefore, the higher the hash power, the greater the difficulty for hackers to attack the system.