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Bitcoin miners took a bit of a break late Sunday evening (ET) after the network’s mining difficulty dropped 0.20% below its difficulty two weeks prior. The drop is the first reduction in mining difficulty in four weeks, as the metric changed from 36.84 trillion to 36.76 trillion.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is still extremely high compared to the height it was in mid-August 2022. For example, on August 17, 2022, just before the third largest difficulty increase of the year, the difficulty was around 28.35 trillion. At 36.76 trillion, data shows that difficulty has increased by 29.66% since August 17, making it more than 29% more difficult to find a bitcoin (BTC) block today than it was in mid-August.
Although the 0.20% drop is a small drop, it is still useful for miners as opposed to the difficulty rising higher. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s total hash rate is around 269.86 exahash per second (EH/s). Records show that BTC’s total lifetime hashrate high (321.15 EH/s) recorded on October 5, 2022 has been broken by a new record recorded on October 31. That day, at block height 761,186, Bitcoin’s total hashrate reached an all-time high of 327.35 EH/s.
The reason the network’s mining difficulty has dropped is because the block generation time has decreased. Block intervals are at the time of writing just over 10 minutes, as the block generation time is currently 10 minutes and six seconds long. This means, at least at current rates, that another difficulty reduction could be in the cards when it changes again on November 20, 2022. However, a lot can change in two weeks or 2016 blocks, and the recent 0.20% reduction helps miners.
Three-day statistics show that Foundry USA leads the pack when it comes to today’s top bitcoin mining pools. Foundry commands 31.47% of the global hashrate with 84.07 (EH/s) SHA256 hashpower dedicated to the Bitcoin chain. Foundry is followed by Antpool, F2pool, Binance Pool and Viabtc respectively. Unknown hashrate or stealth miners hold the sixth largest pool position in terms of hashrate size, with 10.59 EH/s or 3.96% of the global hashrate.
Bitcoin’s fourth block subsidy era or the next block reward halving is expected to occur between April 13 and April 22, 2024, after more than 77,000 BTC blocks have been mined. On November 7, 2022, the most profitable bitcoin mining rig Bitmain Antminer S19 XP Hyd. with 255 terahash per second (TH/s). With a very high power rate of $0.12 per kilowatt hour (kWh), the Bitmain team earns $11.01 per day. If electric costs shrank to $0.07 per kWh, the Antminer S19 XP Hyd. can get an estimated $15.51 per day in profit.
What do you think about Bitcoin’s network difficulty falling by 0.20% this week? Let us know what you think about the current state of the bitcoin mining ecosystem in the comments section below.
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