Where to find exact number of hashes required to mine most recent block?

Question

I would like to see real-time mining profitability. The bitinfocharts web only shows day average. Is it possible to see how many hashes were actually needed to mine most recent Bitcoin block?

Answer 1

You cannot know how many hashes were actually performed for every block, because non-winning hashes aren't published.

There is however a simple formula to compute the expected number of hashes a block needs. Across many blocks of the same difficulty, that expected number is the average of the number of hashes per block.

The formula is almost exactly: 4295032833 times the difficulty.

This derives from the definition of difficulty: it is the ratio between the target hashes need to beat at difficulty 1 (0xffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 = 65535 ⋅ 2²⁰⁸), and the current target. The ratio between 2²⁵⁶ (the number of possible hashes) and that difficulty 1 target is 2⁴⁸ / 65535, which is 4295032833.000015259...