Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment
Bitcoin hashrate surges, pushing mining difficulty to a new all-time high
Analyzing Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment and mining profitability
The latest difficulty adjustment, effective at block height 753,984, increased mining difficulty by 3.45%. In this overview, we’ll analyze the effects on mining and profitability.
Bitcoin’s total hashrate
Bitcoin’s hashrate continued with the upwards trend from last epoch, achieving the most significant growth in two consecutive epochs since September 2021.
Hashrate at the time of the adjustment averaged 229.39 EH/s — the highest any difficulty adjustment has ever seen — surpassing the previous all-time high by only 5.69 EH/s.
In other words, Bitcoin has never had this amount of computing power securing the network in history.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty
Following the increase in hashrate, Bitcoin mining difficulty jumped 3.45% to 32.05T, also surpassing the previous all-time high of 31.25T.
Besides these record-breaking numbers, this constitutes the fourth consecutive upwards difficulty change — something the Bitcoin network couldn’t achieve since February.
This means mining a Bitcoin block has never been harder than it is today.
Hashprice, or mining revenue per TH/s
Just when it seemed price action was finally leading to a mining revenue recovery, the sudden dump after the CPI data release and the new difficulty all-time halted it.
Indeed, hashprice had increased by a cent, reaching $0.091. However, after these two events, revenue per TH/s reversed its gains and fell back to $0.082.
Bitcoin mining profitabilty overview
The new difficulty all-time high and increasing hashrate trend has both positive and negative implications.
On the bright side, it means that Bitcoin is becoming more robust and secure as a network. Despite decreasing revenue, miners’ interest remains strong.
Nevertheless, if profitability keeps taking hit after hit, it won’t be long before we see low-margin miners capitulating, especially considering that winter is coming and electricity prices will likely increase.
The difficulty adjustment in numbers
- Difficulty adjustment block height: 753,984
- Date of the adjustment: 09/13/2022
- Average hashrate at the time of the adjustment: 229.39 EH/s
- Previous difficulty: 30.98T
- Current difficulty: 32.05T
- Difficulty change: +3.45%
- Miner revenue per TH/s (hashprice) after adjustment: $0.082
