On Tuesday, amid a record average network hashrate, Bitcoin mining difficulty exceeded 100 trillion for the first time.
According to blockchain explorer Mempool, the difficulty adjustment occurred at block height 868 and reached a record high of 896 trillion. This is higher than the previous high of 101,7 trillion, which was set just two weeks ago.
Bitcoin mining difficulty is not expressed in specific units. It is a relative indicator of how difficult it is to mine a new block at a given moment.
The difficulty is automatically adjusted every 2016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks. This ensures that on average a new block is mined every 10 minutes, regardless of how many miners are online.
The higher the difficulty, the more computing power and energy a miner needs to mine a block.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty
The record difficulty of Bitcoin mining became possible after the growth of Bitcoin hashrate. The total computing power of the network reached a record average of 730 EH/s.
Higher hashrate increases the cost of mining Bitcoin. According to CoinShares data for the third quarter, the average cost of mining one BTC is $49. This is significantly lower than the market value of the flagship cryptocurrency, which is currently trading at $500.
