After a small 0.49% decrease on February 12, 2023, bitcoin network difficulty is expected to see a large three-day increase on February 24. Estimates are that the difficulty could see its largest increase of the year, surpassing the 10.26% increase that occurred on January 15 with a block height of 772,128.
The next Bitcoin difficulty change is estimated to jump 11.5% higher from 10.78%
In 2022, bitcoin hash rates remained above the 200 exahash per second (EH/s) range. In 2023, however, 300 EH/s appears to be the new standard. Statistics show that over the past 2,016 blocks, bitcoin hash rates have averaged about 310.5 EH/s. Additionally, bitcoin block times have ranged from 8 minutes 55 seconds to 8 minutes 68 seconds, which is faster than the average of 10 minutes. The high hash rates and fast block times represent a significant increase in difficulty expected to occur on February 24.
Statistics indicate that the upcoming difficulty adjustment scheduled for Friday will be the largest of the year, surpassing the previous record set on January 15. the estimated increase in the February 24 adjustment is expected to be between10.78%to11.5%. The current difficulty is approximately 39.16 trillion hashes and could exceed 40 trillion with the next difficulty adjustment; a 10.78% increase would bring the difficulty to approximately 43.35 trillion hashes. Regardless of the final outcome, the increase in difficulty will make it more difficult for bitcoin miners to discover new blocks.
At the time of writing, mining pool Foundry USA is commanding a33.33%of the network hash rate, or 105.37 EH/s. Antpool represents about 18.66% of the global hash rate, with 58.98 EH/s dedicated to the bitcoin blockchain. Together, these two pools account for more than 51% of the pie, consisting of 13 known pools and 11.93 EH/s of unknown hash power. These top five pools control 33.54% of the global hashrate. These top five pools contribute a combined 84.54% of the total hashrate providing security to the bitcoin blockchain.
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