Bitcoin mining difficulty logs new high, up 3.4%

Bitcoin mining difficulty has reached a new high after a 3.44% increase in Monday’s biweekly adjustment, according to data from BTC.com.

See related article: Bitcoin mining difficulty hits new high after Ethereum ‘Merge’ makes space

Fast facts

• BTC.com’s mining difficulty reading was at 36.84 trillion, as of block height 760,032.

• The latest increase follows a 13.55% jump in the previous adjustment on Oct. 10, which was widely believed to be attributed to Ethereum’s “Merge” upgrade that freed up more mining room for Bitcoin producers.

• Bitcoin’s seven-day average hashrate was at around 258.9 exahashes per second on Sunday, up from a seven-day average of 257.2 exahashes two weeks ago, Blockchain.com data showed.

• Bitcoin mining difficulty, which changes about every two weeks, is a measure of how hard a miner has to work to verify transactions in a block to add to the blockchain, or “dig out” Bitcoins.

• Mining difficulty adjustments are highly correlated to changes in the mining hashrate — the level of computing power used for mining.

• Bitcoin was trading at US$19,427 at 6:30 p.m. on Monday in Hong Kong, up 1.24% in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

See related article: Hong Kong digital asset firm sets up US$50 mln fund to expand mining business amid crypto winter