Bitcoin Mining Difficulty rises by 3.45% to claim new ATH

Lavina Daryanani
Source: T3N

On Monday, it was reported that the Bitcoin hash rate was treading at an all-time high level. With more miners on board, more blocks were expected to be mined. And as a result, speculations were being made that Bitcoin’s fourth halving could happen by the end of next year itself as opposed to 2024.

Read More: Bitcoin hashrate at ATH: Next halving to happen by 2023 itself?

Bitcoin mining difficulty follows suit

However now, in what is the latest development, Bitcoin mining difficulty has clinched a new all-time high. Per data from BTC.com, the said metric’s reading stood at 32.045 trillion hashes at press time.

The difficulty is a measure of how difficult it is to mine a Bitcoin block. Per the thumb rule, a high network difficulty means that it will take more computing power to mine the same number of blocks, making the network more secure against attacks, and vice versa.

Source: BTC.com

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is updated every 2,016 blocks—or roughly every fortnight. As depicted below, the latest adjustment marked a 3.45% rise when compared to the one that took place towards the end of August. Back in July, the difficulty was in a downtrend, but since August, the same has been elevating.

Owing to the rise in difficulty, it now takes approximately 9 minutes and 40 seconds to mine one block on the Bitcoin blockchain when compared to last fortnight’s 9 minutes and 9 seconds.

The rising difficulty is a positive from the security front but it will play a role in delaying the next halving, for it now takes more time for miners to mine blocks.

Source: BTC.com

Are miner HODLings intact?

Bitcoin miners, on their part, were on a sell-spree over the past few months. However, in the month of August, their HODLings went up. In July, all public miners held a total of 33,799 BTC, while the number rose to 34,657 last month.