Bitcoin mining difficulty reached an all-time high on February 24 at block number 778,176. Bitcoin mining reached 43.05 trillion hashes. It even surpassed the 40 trillion mark for the very first time. On the other hand, difficulties on the network have increased by 9.95%. This is the second largest increase this year.
A production of blocks at the origin of the difficulty of mining Bitcoin
According to the data provided by the Blockchain, the mining difficulty will increase by about 10%. It will therefore increase from 39.16 trillion to 43.2 trillion. Bitcoin mining difficulty represents the number of iterations miners must run to get the hash of a Bitcoin block. The higher this number, the harder it is to produce a block and the more energy is consumed. As a result, the production of a block becomes more expensive.
Over the next two weeks, according to bitcoinist, approximately 2,016 blocks will be produced and the difficulty will be 43.05 trillion. The network’s average hashrate over the last 2,016 blocks was around 305.8 exahash per second (EH/s).
The average block time before the difficulty change on Friday was around 9 minutes and 11 seconds, and today block times are between 12 and 14 minutes. On Saturday, February 25, 2023, the network’s global hashrate remains at values between 294.91 EH/s and 238.44 EH/s.
Miners are lured by rising prices
Several miners gave up Bitcoin mining and sold their hardware during the 2022 bear market. But since the start of 2023, mining seems to have revived. There are a few reasons for this. First, the price of Bitcoin is up 40% from its low. Then, the arrival of NFTs on the network caused network congestion. This congestion has itself caused an increase in transaction fees.
NFTs on Bitcoin can be a great way to give more use to this Blockchain. Over $800,000 in fees have already been generated from NFT Ordinals. However, isn’t this network congestion likely to make Bitcoin less attractive?
Receive a digest of news in the world of cryptocurrencies by subscribing to our new service of daily and weekly so you don’t miss any of the essential Tremplin.io!
