Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Hits All-Time High as Miners Face 2nd Biggest Surge This Year – Mining Bitcoin News
The mining difficulty of Bitcoin arrived at block elevation #778,176 on February 24, 2023 All-time high (ATH), hit 43.05 trillion hashes and surpassed 40 trillion for the first time ever. The network’s difficulty increased by 9.95%, which is the second-biggest increase this year as Bitcoin saw a combined 24.89% increase over the past 60 days.
Network participants are facing longer lock times after the recent difficulty change
It has never been more difficult to mine Bitcoin (BTC) as it is today as miners experienced a 9.95% increase in difficulty at block height #778,176. Now and for the next two weeks, or about 2,016 blocks, the difficulty will be 43.05 trillion. The network’s average hashrate over the last 2,016 blocks was about 305.8 exahashes per second (EH/s).
Friday’s 9.95% increase was the second largest jump in difficulty this year since the largest was recorded on January 15, 2023 at block elevation #772,128. At this point, the difficulty increased 10.26% more than the previous difficulty metric. The next difficulty change is due on or about March 9th, 2023 and currently block times are much longer than the 10 minute average.
The average block time before Friday’s difficulty change was about 9 minutes and 11 seconds, and today’s block times are between 12 and 14 minutes long. The longer block time shows that the recent difficulty change has slowed down miners. On Saturday, February 25, 2023, the network’s global hash rate tumbled in between 294.91 EH/s and 238.44 EH/s.
On Saturday, the largest mining pool in terms of hashrate is Foundry USA with 103.18 EH/s, or 34.88% of the network’s total hash power. Following Foundry is Antpool, which owns 15.81% of the total hashpower, or about 46.77 EH/s of hashpower. Foundry and Antpool are followed by F2pool, Binance Pool and Viabtc respectively. In the last three days, 13 known pools and 15.13 EH/s of unknown hashpower discovered a total of 430 blocks.
What do you think of Bitcoin’s network difficulties rising to a new ATH above the 40 trillion mark? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
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Source: Crypto News Deutsch
