BTC Mining Difficulty Falls And Breaks Biggest Bullish Sequence Since 2018

BTC Mining Difficulty underwent a new adjustment this weekend. This time there was a 1.49% drop, taking the total processing power (hash rate) to 159.8 exahashes per second (EH/s).

Although it is a small drop in percentage terms, the readjustment has a symbolic value. It has broken a streak of nine consecutive highs since July.

In fact, this was the biggest sequence of increases in difficulty since January 2018. At that time, mining difficulty increased 15 times between January and July, a sequence that was only interrupted by the 3.45% drop recorded on July 17th. .

However, the total hash rate grew 514% between 2018 and 2021. At the end of the last sequence, the network had only 38 EH/s. Furthermore, the current 159.8 EH/s represents the highest hash rate since May 13, a month before China banned BTC mining.

BTC Mining Difficulty is adjusted every two weeks (or more precisely, every 2016 blocks) to maintain the normal block time of an uncovered block every 10 minutes. The average time for the miner to find a block in the last 7 days was 10.39 minutes.

Hash rate and profitability drop

Currently, the difficulty of the BTC is at 22.34 trillion (T) of hashes, against 22.34 registered before the adjustment. As a result, the network is still 10% below the record 25.05t recorded in mid-May.

The 7-day moving average dropped from 167.9 exahashes (E) on November 20th to 156 E on November 28th. Consequently, BTC mining profitability has fallen by 17.36% in the two weeks since the previous difficulty adjustment, down by 17.36%. Data from the BitInfoCharts portal.

However, miners continue to accumulate the newly mined BTC, according to data from the ByteTree platform. Of the 6,019 BTC generated in the last seven days, only 5,236 were spent, resulting in a saving of 783 BTC.

Mining recovers after China crash

This last streak of highs in difficulty was marked by extremes. For example, the largest individual adjustment was 13.24% on August 28th, while the smallest was 0.95% on October 18th. During this sequence, the hash rate grew 61.2% compared to the 97 EH/s achieved after the fall of miners in China.

When the Chinese government banned BTC mining, miners were forced to relocate their machines hastily. As a result, many of them were suddenly turned off, which caused the hash rate to drop precipitously.

The rate dropped 27% on July 7, one of the biggest negative readjustments in the history of the BTC. But gradually, miners relocated to countries like Russia, Kazakhstan and, above all, the United States. When they restarted their machines, mining slowly returned to normal.