Difficulty of BTC mining (mining difficulty) increased for the first time since May after a series of four negative adjustments in a row. According to BTC.com, the difficulty has changed by + 6%.
Mining difficulty is adjusted about once every 2 weeks after the extraction of 2016 BTC blocks. The aim of this adjustment is to maintain the average time for extracting one block to 10 minutes. If the hashrate or total computing power expended on BTC extraction increases, the difficulty increases and vice versa.
The difficulty of BTC mining reached historic highs in May, when it increased by another 21.53% to its previous record maximum. Subsequently, however, it fell four times in a row – in one case even by a record 28%, as Chinese miners had to stop their BTC mining in mainland China, which led to a significant decline in the hashrate.
The increase in mining difficulty can be seen as a positive foundation, suggesting that BTC mining is slowly recovering from the worst after Chinese mining has ended. Some important Chinese miners have already managed to move their machines to other countries (especially Kazakhstan) and at the same time there is growing interest in BTC mining in North America, Europe and some countries in Asia.
Edward Evenson of Braiins running Slush Pool estimated this week that the hashrate could reach its peak before the exodus of Chinese miners during 2022.
