Bitcoin mining difficulty has increased by 3.6% since its last high. BTC.com estimates that the next adjustment will allow overcoming the current difficulty.
In recent days, the mining difficulty of Bitcoin (BTC) hit a new all-time high. After the last difficulty adjustment on August 24th, it reached 17.56 T.
The adjustment occurred in block 645,120 at 8:34 UTC. At that point, Bitcoin broke its difficulty record of 17.35T, which it reached on July 13th.
The next adjustment in the second week of September could bring the mining difficulty to the 18.18 T area, which would be a new all-time high, according to estimates from BTC.com.
The current difficulty increase of 3.60% was proportionally less than previous adjustments. For example, the increase was about 15% on June 16th, while the previous all-time high that it reached on July 13th was 10%.
Mining Difficulty as a Metric of Mathematical Complexity
Bitcoin mining difficulty is the value that determines the level of complexity of the mathematical puzzle that the miner must solve to mine a block of the chain.
A high difficulty level means that more computing power is needed to mine the same number of blocks. The adjustment in difficulty is directly related to the estimated total computing power in the overall hash rate, measured in TH/s.
There is an adjustment in Bitcoin mining difficulty every 2016 blocks (approximately every two weeks). When the extraction of blocks takes place too fast or too slowly, the difficulty undergoes an adjustment to control the speed.
For miners with fewer resources, the increasing difficulty is always a problem. For example, the S9 mining equipment is only profitable at USD 0.03/kWh, that is, the price of electricity in China during the rainy season. The mining capacity of this equipment could not be enough since October when the rainy season ends.
Miners’ Capitulation
Rafael Schultze-Kraft, chief technology officer at blockchain analytics company GlassNode, tweeted “miners’ capitulation.” He did this ironically, noting the 9% increase in mining difficulty since the last halving, concerning the dreaded massive sale of BTC by miners when mining is no longer profitable.
The same will not happen with Bitcoin in the company that he represents. On the contrary, they predict that the price of the cryptocurrency will maintain its uptrend for the thirteenth consecutive week. They said that “the fundamentals remain solid.”
Other Data of Mining Interest
F2pool ranks first on the podium of pool distribution, followed by Poolin and BTC.com. In total, miners receive 59.11 BTC per day for mining transactions. Besides, they have been receiving 6.5 BTC as a reward for each block that they manage to mine, since the halving on May 11th.
At the time of writing this article, the Bitcoin hash rate is 119.39 TH/s. This leads to infer that the mining power is slightly lower than that of July 13th, when the previous all-time high of mining difficulty took place. At that time, the hash rate was 123.22 TH/s.
Regarding the price of Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency market, it continues to fluctuate in the area of USD 11,600, after defeating the resistance of USD 12,000 some days before.
By Alexander Salazar
