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Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Edges to All-Time High

The bump in mining difficulty comes as hashrate remains strong, despite bitcoin’s price edging downward.

Updated May 11, 2023, 6:47 p.m. Published Sep 14, 2022, 5:17 a.m.
(Midjourney/CoinDesk)
(Midjourney/CoinDesk)

On-chain data shows that bitcoin’s mining difficulty has crossed an all-time high with its latest jump, the second in two weeks.

  • Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased by 3.45% at block height 753,984 to 32.05 trillion hashes.
  • This is the second significant recent increase. On Aug. 31, the difficulty jumped by 9.26%.
  • Given bitcoin’s compressed value, with recent declines on high CPI numbers, and a possible bottoming out as low as $10,000, profitability is narrowing for miners.
  • Despite concerns about profitability, the average hash rate remains above 200 exahash per second at 229.39 EH/s, close to the all-time high of 231 EH/s.
BitBitcoin: Mean hashrate (7-day moving average) (Glassnode)
BitBitcoin: Mean hashrate (7-day moving average) (Glassnode)
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  • On-chain data shows that Digital Currency Group-owned Foundry USA is currently contributing 28% of the total global hash rate followed by AntPool at 16.15%.
  • CoinDesk is an independent subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, the crypto-focused conglomerate that also owns Grayscale and TradeBlock.