- Bitcoin mining difficulty surged 6.2% to an all-time high of 101.7 trillion, breaching the 100 trillion mark for the first time.
- Bitcoin's seven-day moving average hash rate hit a record 755.5 EH/s last week.
Bitcoin mining difficulty has reached a historic level, surging 6.2% to surpass the 100 trillion mark for the first time. This adjustment, which occurred at block height 868,896, pushed the difficulty to 101.7 trillion, breaking the previous record of 95.7 trillion set just two weeks prior.
The rise in difficulty follows a record seven-day moving average hash rate of over 750 EH/s achieved last week, indicating increased computational power dedicated to securing the network.
The mining difficulty metric adjusts every 2016 blocks—approximately every two weeks—to maintain an average block discovery rate of one block every ten minutes, regardless of the number of active miners. Prior to Tuesday’s adjustment, Bitcoin blocks were being mined faster than this target rate, averaging one block every nine minutes and 27 seconds, according to Clark Moody’s dashboard.
Increased mining difficulty reflects the intensifying competition among miners and the greater energy and computational power needed to discover new blocks. The recent surge in network hash rate, which peaked at a seven-day moving average of 755.5 EH/s, shows a collective increase in miner activity following Bitcoin’s fourth halving event in April. After the halving reduced block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, miners faced tightened revenue, with average earnings dropping from $72.4 million to a range of $25-$35 million.
Despite challenging conditions, miners, particularly U.S. public companies, are expanding operations, upgrading equipment, and consolidating market share. As of now, Bitcoin’s price stands at $68,694, down around 4% in the past week but up 63% year-to-date, underscoring continued resilience in the cryptocurrency market.
Edited by Harshajit Sarmah
