- Bitcoin recently completed its first difficulty adjustment following the fourth halving, recording a 1.99% increase.
- The network’s difficulty level rose from 8,639 trillion to a new level of 8,810 trillion.
- The increasing trend in mining difficulty underscores the strength of Bitcoin’s network security while presenting significant challenges for miners.
The Bitcoin network just completed its first difficulty adjustment since the recent halving event, marking a new milestone for mining on the blockchain.
Difficulty Increases by 1.99%
On Wednesday, May 20th at 10:51 am EDT, block 840,672 was mined, which caused the difficulty to increase by 1.99%. This brought the difficulty to a new all-time high of 18,810 trillion. After the halving at block 840,000, it took 672 blocks for the network’s difficulty to adjust upwards to account for the reduced block rewards.
This means the hash of a new block now has to meet a much lower target value within the total possible hash range in order to be accepted, making mining more challenging.
Effects on Miners
The increasing difficulty presents miners with greater computational requirements to stay competitive. They will need to upgrade their equipment and find ways to improve efficiency.
This will impact miner profitability and could affect participation rates on the network going forward. After initially spiking above $180 per petahash per day, the hashprice had fallen to $74 just before the difficulty change.
Now back up to $92, miners are earning less per unit of computation than pre-halving rates of $100-$110 per petahash. With mining now more difficult than ever, their profit margins face additional squeezing.
Conclusion
While this poses challenges for miners, the rising difficulty also highlights the ongoing security of Bitcoin’s decentralized blockchain. As mining becomes more difficult, it requires greater investment and innovation from network participants to keep the system running smoothly.
