NASA Apollo Computer Bitcoin Mining Data and BTC Market Reaction
Bitcoin (BTC)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
news.bitcoin.com reports that the Apollo Guidance Computer used to guide astronauts to the moon was programmed to mine Bitcoin, a viral story resurfacing this week. Computer scientist Ken Shirriff restored the machine and wrote mining code in AGC assembly language, calculating that the device performs one SHA-256 hash every 10.3 seconds. In 2019, when the network hash rate was 65 EH/s, the AGC would have needed about a million times the age of the universe to find a block.
Today, with the hashrate at 934 EH/s following a 1.31% difficulty increase, that estimate scales to roughly 13 million times the age of the universe. The computer is not the slowest in Shirriff’s collection, as an IBM 1401 required 80 seconds per hash and a 1973 Xerox Alto managed 1.5 hashes per second. Bitcoin’s price reached $81,238 intraday before settling near $80,800, supported by a block subsidy as fees comprised only 0.43% of miner rewards.
Hashprice jumped 22.24% to $39.63 per petahash per day, while mining difficulty sits 13% below its yearly start. Shirriff successfully reproduced the correct result for block 286,819, proving the code worked despite the machine never earning a satoshi.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for BTC, measured when this story was written up on 20 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
BTC trades at $81,249.99, with the 1-hour buy ratio at 45.1% indicating immediate selling pressure, while the 4-hour ratio stands at 60.8%, showing stronger buying intent over a slightly longer timeframe. The 24-hour buy ratio of 48.2% suggests a near-even split in buyer and seller activity over the full day. Volume delta reflects this dynamic, showing a net outflow of $1.57 million in the last hour but a substantial net inflow of $31.8 million over the past four hours. This four-hour accumulation contrasts with a 24-hour net outflow of $31.8 million, indicating that recent buying has not been enough to offset earlier selling. Cumulative Volume Delta closed at +$22.3 million, confirming that net buying pressure has dominated the session despite the mixed short-term ratios.
The latest daily buy ratio of 46.7% sits at the 18th percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 49.2% - weaker buying than most days.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for BTC, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the average buy ratio was 52.3%, making today’s 24-hour ratio of 48.2% a 4.1 percentage point decline from the weekly norm. Spot volume for the day was 0.77 times the weekly average, suggesting that trading activity is currently subdued compared to recent trends. The market has seen net buying on six of the past seven days, with an 8-day volume delta of over $305 million supporting the recent price increase. This context indicates that while today is less active and slightly more balanced than the weekly average, the broader trend remains constructive. The current price action reflects a continuation of the weekly uptrend, even as daily participation metrics dip slightly below their recent averages.