The challenge of mining Bitcoin (BTC) continues to increase as the historic halving event approaches, which will reduce miner rewards by 50%.
According to data from BTC.com, Bitcoin mining difficulty has reached a new all-time high of 86.4 trillion after the latest adjustment on April 10. This adjustment increased the difficulty by 3.4% from the previous level of 83 trillion set on March 28.
This latest adjustment is expected to be the final one before the halving. BTC.com predicts that the next adjustment will occur in 13 days, around April 24. The halving itself is expected to take place in eight days, on April 19.
Bitcoin mining difficulty is a measure of how challenging and time-consuming it is to mine a new block or solve mathematical puzzles under Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism. The difficulty level is programmed to self-adjust every 2,016 blocks, or approximately every two weeks, in order to maintain a target block time of 10 minutes.
The mining difficulty is directly influenced by the Bitcoin blockchain hash rate, which measures the computational power of miners in producing new BTC. As the mining difficulty has increased, so has the hash rate. According to BTC.com, the hash rate has surged from around 619 exahashes per second (EH/s) on March 28 to 696 EH/s on April 10.
While the mining difficulty reached an all-time high on April 10, the hash rate actually reached its peak earlier on March 24, reaching 727.9 EH/s, according to data from BitInfoCharts.
Analysts predict that the hash rate is likely to decrease after the upcoming halving in 2024. Galaxy’s mining analysts suggest that up to 20% of Bitcoin’s current hash rate could go offline as miners turn off their rigs due to reduced efficiency post-halving. They also note that by the end of 2023, more than 70% of the hash rate was generated by just eight ASIC miner models.
Overall, the Bitcoin mining landscape is expected to face significant changes as the halving event approaches, with both mining difficulty and hash rate playing crucial roles in the process.