Bitcoin’s mining difficulty reached an all-time high (ATH) on February 24, 2023 with a block high of #778,176, reaching 43.5 trillion hashes and breaking the 40 trillion mark for the first time ever. Network difficulty rose 9.95%, the second largest gain of the year, as bitcoin gained a total of 24.89% over the past 60 days.
Network participants are facing longer block times
following recent difficulty changes.
Bitcoin (BTC)mining has never been more difficult than it is today. That’s because miners experienced a 9.95% increase in difficulty with block height #778,176. Between now and the next two weeks, or about 2,016 blocks, the difficulty will be 43.05 trillion. The average hash rate for the network over the past 2,016 blocks was approximately 305.8 exahashes per second (EH/s).
rose 9.95% on Fridaywas the largest recorded on January 15, 2023 at block height #772,128, the second largest difficulty jump this year. At that time, it was 10.26% higher than the previous difficulty index. The next change in difficulty is scheduled for around March 9, 2023, and the block duration is currently considerably longer than the 10-minute average.
The average block time before Friday’s difficulty change was about 9 minutes and 11 seconds, and the current block time is between 12 and 14 minutes. The longer block times indicate that the recent difficulty change has slowed miners down; on Saturday, February 25, 2023, the network’s global hash rate is coasting at a value between 294.91 EH/s and 238.44 EH/s.
On Saturday, thelargest mining poolin terms of hash rate is Foundry USA, with 103.18 EH/s, or 34.88% of the network’s total hash power; following Foundry is Antpool with 15.81% of the total, or roughly 46.77 EH/s. Following Foundry and Antpool are F2pool, Binance Pool, and Viabtc, respectively. Over the past three days, the 13 known pools and 15.13 EH/s of unknown hash power have found a total of 430 blocks.
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