Bitcoin The mining difficulty level, which measures how difficult it is to solve the mathematical problems associated with a block, surpassed 80 trillion on Friday.
According to blockchain explorer BTC.com, the network's hash rate, which measures the total computational power expended by miners, rose to 562.81EH/s, and the mining difficulty reached a new all-time high of 81.73 trillion. Consistently increasing since January 2023, Bitcoin mining difficulty is on track to reach 100 trillion within the next few months.
Bitcoin mining difficulty level as of February 16th. Image: BTC.com
In Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism, mining difficulty measures the complexity of adding new blocks to the blockchain. The higher the difficulty level, the more computational power and energy is required for miners to find a suitable hash for a new block. In the case of the Bitcoin network, the difficulty has more than doubled over the past 12 months.
Bitcoin price reached $51,783.74 on February 16th at 10:45 am ET. According to The Block’s price page, the last time Bitcoin price reached that high was in November 2021.
Bitcoin halving
Bitcoin mining rewards will be cut in half in late April, known as the “Bitcoin halving.” Bitcoin programmers built reductions into the token's structure approximately every four years to combat inflation. The last time Bitcoin mining rewards were halved was in May 2020.
During the next halving, Bitcoin rewards will drop from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Halving can cause hashrate to drop as inefficient miners struggle to break even on mining rewards and exit. A lower hashrate is expected to reduce the difficulty of mining Bitcoin as the network attempts to maintain consistent block generation every 10 minutes.
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