Bitcoin Mining Difficulty jumps to an All Time High

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty jumped 9.26% on Wednesday, with its second-highest difficulty in 2022. The latest increase is Bitcoin’s third difficulty increase since August 4, 2022, and it is now 11.63% harder to find a Bitcoin block reward.

The change in difficulty occurred at block height of 751,968, and the 9.26% jump is the second largest this year. The largest increase in 2022 occurred 223 days ago, on January 20, 2022, at block height 719,712.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty jumps to an All Time High

The difficulty currently stands at 30.98 trillion, which is just 0.27 below the all-time high (ATH) of 31.25 trillion at the Network Difficulty on May 10, 2022. Miners took a hit as Bitcoin’s dollar value dropped and difficulty increased by 9.26. %. In fact, the last three difficulty levels made it 11.63% harder to find a Bitcoin block reward before August 4th.

On August 4, at the block high of 747,936, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased by 1.74% and then increased by 0.63% two weeks later. Five days ago, Bitcoin.com News reported that the community was discussing the possibility that it would be difficult to see a noticeable increase. On August 25, Blocksbridge Consulting tweeted that it was expecting “a major leap in difficulty”.

Additionally, Bitcoin’s hashrate peaked at 282.21 exahash per second (EH / s) in the same week. The hashrate was about 3.35% lower than the all-time high (ATH) recorded on June 8, 2022, at block 739,928. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s hashrate fluctuates at 236.33 EH / s.

The increase in difficulty and drop in BTC value has yet to affect miners, as the hashrate continues to run at increased speeds. The difficulty increases when 2,016 bitcoin block rewards are discovered “too fast” and the metric decreases when the block detection time or interval is “too slow”.

Another increase is possible on cards with average block interval and current hash rate

Satoshi Nakamoto’s design ensures that a new BTC block is found approximately every ten minutes, as the DAA system is modeled by a Poisson distribution scheme. The average block interval at the time of writing is 7:59 minutes, which means that if the next 2,016 bitcoin block rewards are discovered “too soon”, the next difficulty is estimated to increase again.

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty jumps to an All Time High 2
There are approximately 1,964 BTC block rewards left until the next difficulty change, which is expected to take place on September 12, 2022. If the increase is higher on that day, there is a good chance that the network difficulty will exceed very well the ATH recorded 113 days.

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