It’s now harder than ever to mine a block of Bitcoin (BTC). How do we explain this development and what does it portend, ahead of halving?
The difficulty of mining Bitcoin reaches an all-time high
The mining difficulty of the Bitcoin network corresponds to the effort required by miners to create a block. It is automatically adjusted every 2 weeks, to guarantee a more or less regular block production time. And this time, it has reached an absolute record.
The Bitcoin network’s mining difficulty has just increased by 5.79%, reaching an all-time high of 83,950 billion. Since the beginning of 2024, the network has seen 2 downward and 4 upward adjustments in difficulty.
Evolution of Bitcoin mining difficulty over the past year
This increase is due to the rise in the hashrate, i.e. the computing power, used on the Bitcoin network. The hashrate peaked on March 12, at 628 exahash per second (EH/s). Or to put it another way, miners have never allocated so much power to the Bitcoin network.
How can we explain this increase?
If the difficulty of mining is increasing to record levels, it’s because miners are flocking to the network. The reason is simple: with the Bitcoin price also reaching new records, it’s particularly profitable to help secure the network at the moment. The difficulty of mining is therefore simply adjusting to this demand, in order to maintain an even rate of block production.
The other factor is, of course, the halving approach. In about a month’s time, mining rewards will be halved on the BTC network. Miners therefore have every interest in taking advantage of current rewards, before they are reduced. This may also explain the influx.
But it also shows how healthy the payment network is… and how secure it is. The more miners there are, the more hashrate there is, and the more Bitcoin is protected from attack. It has also reached a stage where it is now safe from a 51% attack, according to recent publications.
