- Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is set to rise by 6% on February 15, as the system undergoes an automatic readjustment.
- BTC.com reports that bitcoin’s mining difficulty has surpassed 80 trillion, marking a significant milestone in the cryptocurrency’s evolution.
- The Bitcoin Halving scheduled for April will cut mining rewards in half, an event that occurs approximately every four years to counteract inflation and maintain the token’s value.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty was expected to increase by 6%, hitting 80 trillion during its automatic readjustment process.
Bitcoin mining difficulty surges past 80 trillion, said BTC.com
On February 16, 2024, the bitcoin mining difficulty, which measures the difficulty of solving complex cryptographic puzzles in the mining process, exceeded 80 trillion, according to BTC.com. This indicates that mining a bitcoin block has become 80 trillion times more difficult since mining started in 2009.
Since January 2023, mining bitcoin has become considerably more challenging, with projections indicating that the difficulty will reach 100 trillion in the months ahead.
An elevated difficulty level in bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism implies that miners are required to use a greater amount of computing power and energy to identify the correct hash. The difficulty of bitcoin has more than doubled over the past year.
Also read: Are spot bitcoin ETFs really better than gold?
The Bitcoin Halving set to slash mining earnings in April
The Bitcoin Halving, which will take place in April, will reduce bitcoin’s mining earnings in half. Roughly every four years, bitcoin’s coders integrated the decrease into the token’s structure to combat inflation. The mining incentive for bitcoin was last halved in May 2020.
Also read: Bitcoin reaches $44,000 high, faces resistance: returns to $42,000
With the impending halving, bitcoin mining rewards will drop from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. This adjustment might lead to a reduced hash rate, as miners with less efficient operations may struggle to cover their expenses and decide to take their mining rigs offline.
