Bitcoin’s mining difficulty rose 5% to a record 150.84 trillion on Wednesday, marked the seventh straight upward adjustment, according to Glassnode.
The difficulty, which resets every 2016 blocks (approximately every two weeks), measures how difficult it is for miners to find new blocks and keep the average block time around 10 minutes.
The increase reflects the ongoing growth in the network hash rate, which is now above a zettahash at 1.05 zh/s. A higher hash rate indicates more machines competing to secure the network, strengthening security while growing the bar for profitability.
That pressure shows in the hashprice, a miner’s income per unit of the hashrate, which slides under $ 50 per petahash per second, displaying Luxor data.
The scale was easy to handle $ 52 when Bitcoin exchanged more than $ 118,000 earlier this Tag -hot, but since the lower as the difficulty has increased and the prices have softened.
To improve miner’s margins, one of the three levers will have to move: higher charges, which will remain in multi-year lows, a rebound on bitcoin price, or a slowing down hash rate.
Despite the difficulty in the record and collapse of the hashprice, mining stocks rallied next to Bitcoin’s flow of more than $ 118,500, with Cipher Mining (CIFR) over 51% last month, Bit Digital (BTBT) gets 25%, and marathon digital (Mara) that climbs almost 16%
