Bitcoin mining difficulty has surged to its biggest point since this year, including the two previous years. Probably, the lastest spike in the difficulty adjustment comes amid the growing network hashrate, despite the halving event in May, which slashed block rewards by 50 percent.
Bitcoin mining difficulty spikes towards 2018 ATH
Following the information provided by BTC.com, an on-chain data platform, the latest Bitcoin mining difficulty happened on June 16, bringing an increase of 14.95 percent to 15.78 trillion. The jump represents the most significant level the mining difficulty has ever attained since the last two years, reportedly in January 2018.
As of then, there were two increases in the mining difficulty. The first big spike happened on January 13, jumping by 15.36 percent, while the biggest increase followed on January 25 at 16.84 percent.
Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment happens at every 2016 block, which is roughly two weeks. This constitutes an essential function for the cryptocurrency, as it usually happens to keep the network’s integrity, by regulating the average time scheduled for new blocks, which is ten minutes.
Expect more increase in hashrate
Basically, the Bitcoin mining difficulty is adjusted by DAA (difficulty adjustment algorithm) based on the network hashrate, which perhaps, shows how active the cryptocurrency miners have become. Thus, the mining difficulty will be increased if the hashrate increases, and vice versa. This is to maintain consistency in new block production.
Although Bitcoin halving forced many low-scale mining operators out of the market, with the reward now settling at 6.25 BTC per block, industry experts are still predicting more rise in the network hashrate, given that advanced mining machines are being built and deployed into the market.
Kevin Zhang, an official at Greenidge Generation, said they expect the hashrate to continuously increase, as new-gen miners are coming online, while the old ones go off.
