On August 18, 2022, Bitcoin mining difficulty increased again after the 1.74% increase two weeks ago on August 4. At block height 749,952 at At 7:07 AM (EST), the network’s mining difficulty rose 0.63% from 28.17 trillion to 28.35 trillion on Thursday. morning.
Bitcoin Network records second consecutive difficulty increase since August 4th
Finding a bitcoin (BTC) block is slightly more difficult today than it was over the past two weeks as the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) increased by 0.63%. The increase is the second consecutive increase after DAA jumped 1.74% two weeks before, at a block height of 747,936.
The two increases indicate that it is currently 2.37% more difficult to find a BTC block than it was before August 4, when the difficulty parameter was 27.69 trillion. BTC’s hashrate has decreased in terms of exahash dedicated to the network after reaching an all-time high on June 8, 2022, at block height 739,928.
At the time, the network recorded a maximum of 292.02 exahashes per second (EH/s), and today the hashrate is running at 182.40 EH/s. Block 749,952, the block that changed the DAA this week, was discovered by Foundry USA and it contained 2,648 transactions and 0.1692 BTC in fees on top of the 6.25 BTC block subsidy.
Foundry is the top mining pool in the last three days as it has 46.81 EH/s or 23.70% of the network hash rate. Out of 422 BTC blocks found in the last three days, Foundry discovered 100 blocks. The second largest mining pool today is Antpool with 34.17 EH/s or 17.3% of the network’s hashpower.
Bitmain’s Antpool has found a total of 73 blocks out of the 422 discovered. There are 11 known mining pools today that dedicate SHA256 hashes against the BTC chain, and 1.9% of the hashes are run by unknown or stealth miners.
Of the 422 blocks found in 72 hours, unknown hash discovered eight blocks during that time frame. With the difficulty increasing and the lower BTC fiat values, there are fewer bitcoin mining pools mining BTC this week than there were a few months ago.
The most profitable bitcoin mining rig today is Bitmain’s Antminer S19 XP with 140 terahash per second (TH/s), and by paying $0.12 per kilowatt hour (kWh), the S19 XP gets an estimated $6.21 per day in bitcoin profits .
Using today’s difficulty of 28.35 trillion, today’s BTC exchange rates, and $0.12 per kWh in electrical costs, a Bitmain S19 Pro+ Hydro with 198 TH/s makes an estimated $5.36 per day in profit. Microbt’s Whatsminer M50S and Whatsminer M50 can get an estimated $2.59 to $3.95 per day in BTC profit.
What do you think of the Bitcoin network’s difficulty change on Thursday? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the news editor at Bitcoin.com News and a financial technology journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,700 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
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