Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Reaches ATH Of 39.35 Trillion

Earlier this week, the mining difficulty of BTC reached a peak of 39.35 trillion. This shows an increase of 4.68% from the previous peak record, making it more difficult for BTC miners to mine BTC.

New Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Adjustment Is Lower 

According to on-chain data, the latest mining difficulty increase was lower than the previous increments. On January 15th, the network saw a mining difficulty increase from 34.09 to 37.59 trillion, a 10.26% rise.

Also, the last increases in the past 12 months were higher, reaching 13.55% on October 10th, 2022. Crypto analysts view this as positive due to increased demand for miners to validate transactions, boosting the network’s security.

Meanwhile, the adjustment of mining difficulty can affect the price of Bitcoin. Also, it could offer some hints about its short-term trajectory. Generally, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is automatically adjusted every 14 days to keep the total time for generating a block at 10 minutes.

KLink, the blockchain-based money transfer network, reports that the next mining difficulty adjustment is slated for February 11th. Based on its calculations, the platform predicts an estimated rise to 41.09 trillion (approximately 4.41%).

Surprisingly, the price of Bitcoin does not directly correlate with the mining difficulty. There have been several cases where the price stayed stable despite huge fluctuations in mining difficulty.

However, at other times, the mining difficulty has been accompanied by a noticeable increase or decrease in price. Since January, BTC prices have increased by approximately 42.7%.

According to CoinGecko data, BTC traded at $16,587 on January 1st but rose to about $23,683 on January 30th. Although the price increase could benefit BTC miners, the 4.68% increase in mining difficulty may result in lower profits.

Two Major Mining Pools Control Most Of BTC’s Hashrate

Additionally, BTC’s hashrate, similar to its mining difficulty, has increased. BTC’s hashrate increased to 295.55 EH/s (exahashes per second). This is still below the network’s all-time high (ATH) of 361.20 EH/s, which was recorded on January 6th at block 770,709.

Furthermore, the concentration in mining pools has increased significantly, with two pools controlling over 51% of BTC hashrate in the past month.

According to a BTC pool hashrate chart from BTC.com, Foundry USA controlled 31.87% of the hashrate in January, followed closely by AntPool, which held 19.53%. BTC.com data showed that the number of blocks mined in the past 30 days is 4,613.

Foundry accounted for 1,470 blocks, while AntPool was responsible for 901 blocks. Meanwhile, data shows that BTC’s number of unmined blocks stands at about 65,704.

Moreover, the number of unmined BTC is about 1,723,13.75 BTC. Notably, the more the BTC left to mine reduces; the higher Bitcoin’s mining difficulty becomes.

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