Bitcoin Mining Activity Soars to New Heights as Difficulty Reaches Record High
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has achieved a fresh peak, surging by 6.47% on Monday, making it increasingly challenging for miners to unlock new blocks. According to CoinWarz data, the current mining difficulty for Bitcoin, which represents the estimated number of hashes needed to mine a block, now stands at a staggering 61.03 trillion. This marks the third consecutive difficulty increase, nearly doubling since October of the previous year.
Every 2,016 blocks, or approximately every two weeks, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty undergoes adjustment. During this process, the network assesses whether miners have been faster or slower in finding new blocks compared to the target time of 10 minutes per block. If blocks are mined too quickly, the difficulty increases; if it takes longer than 10 minutes to mine a block, the difficulty decreases.
The rise in mining difficulty indicates that more miners are joining the network, which intensifies the computational power required for successful block mining. Some experts speculate that this surge in activity can be attributed to the approaching Bitcoin halving, which is approximately 6.5 months away. As Jeff Mei, COO of BTSE, suggests, miners might be striving to maximize their returns before the halving event reduces the mining rewards by half.
Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, co-founder and CSO at crypto lender Ledn, also anticipates a rush of miners coming online before the halving, aiming to benefit from the current 6.25 BTC per block payout rate before it drops to 3.125 BTC per block. However, once the halving occurs, the rush to connect new miners is expected to subside.
Aside from the halving, increased concerns about a potential dramatic rise in energy prices impacting miner profitability could be another factor driving this surge in mining activity, according to Mei from BTSE.
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