Bitcoin Networks Gets 5th Positive Mining Difficulty Adjustment in a Row

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Evening

With global Bitcoin network hash rate recovering and miner accumulating more mining power, the Bitcoin mining difficulty rose again yesterday. This marks the fifth consecutive mining difficulty rise in a row since mid May crash.

Bitcoin network posted an increase of 3.1% in mining difficulty on Tuesday, with difficulty standing at 19T. Despite being the fifth consecutive rise, current mining difficulty is still way down from mid May's peak value of 25.05T, after which mining difficult fell significantly.

Current batch of mining difficulty rises follows the four consecutive mining difficulty drops which started in mid may May due to China's crackdown on Bitcoin mining and global concerns regarding Bitcoin's environmental impact.

Bitcoin mining difficulty is a measure of how much computational power is required by miners to earn bitcoin by validating the transactions on the network. More number of miners competing for the upcoming block, more it is difficult to mine the Bitcoin. Mining difficulty auto adjusts every 2016 blocks or fortnightly, acting as an indicator of competition among miners. The difficulty adjustments keep the average block mining time at 10min, thereby ensuring the next halving happens on forecasted time(May 10, 2024).

And naturally with increasing mining difficulty, networks total hash rate is also on the rise. Current network hash rate is at 140.19Eh/s, still low in comparison to the Mid May's peak value of 180.66Eh/s. Recovering network hash rate indicates that displaced Chinese miners are coming back online steadily.