Bitcoin recorded another mining difficulty rise on Sunday, October 23, 2022, at block height 760,032 rising 3.44% higher. This means that not only is it 3.44% harder to find a bitcoin block subsidy, the network’s mining difficulty has also reached another all-time high (ATH) by tapping 36.84 trillion.
Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Adjusted Up 3.44%, Now At 36.84 Trillion
At the end of this week, the mining difficulty of Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 3.44% over the past two weeks, or the last 2,016 blocks, compared to miners high. After a 3.44% shift on Sunday evening (ET), the network’s difficulty hit a lifetime high of ₹36.84 trillion.
The rise on Sunday follows the 13.55% increase Bitcoin’s difficulty recorded on October 10, 2022, at block height 758,016. The 13.55% increase was 2022’s largest Bitcoin difficulty rise, and it took place as BTC’s total hashrate reached an ATH on October 11, 2022, at block height 758,138.
On 11 October, the network’s hash rate reached 325.11 exhash per second (EH/s), which is equivalent to three hundred and twenty-five quintillion hashes of one hundred and ten quadrillion hashes per second.
As Bitcoin.com News reported on October 21, the network’s hashrate has been oblivious to the difficulty’s lifetime high and the lower BTC prices, as Bitcoin’s computational power remains stronger than ever.
Currently, the hash rate of BTC is between 260 and 275 EH/s. The reason for the increase in difficulty on Sunday is that 2,016 blocks were mined faster than the two-week average.
Prior to the shift, BTC’s block time average on Sunday, October 23, 2022, at 5 p.m. (ET) was around 8:79 minutes. The October 21 mining update that highlights the network’s hashrate strength noted that block intervals were between 8:30 minutes to 9:35 minutes.
The goal of Satoshi’s difficulty is to attempt to maintain block intervals at an average rate of ten minutes per block. If the 2,016 blocks between difficulty retargets are less than the two-week average, the difficulty will increase and decrease if it takes too long (more than two weeks) to mine 2,016 blocks.
Currently, the top three bitcoin mining pools Foundry USA, Antpool, and F2pool command 60.36% of the global hashrate on Sunday. During the last three days, 444 BTC blocks were mined into existence and Foundry discovered 113 of those blocks.
Antpool captured 90 blocks and F2Pool got 65 out of 444 blocks. 12 known mining pools are dedicating SHA256 hashrate to the BTC chain, and 4.05% of the global hash rate belongs to unknown hashpower, otherwise known as stealth miners.
At the time of writing a block subsidy’s USD value is $122,250, and the next expected mining difficulty retarget is due on or around November 6, 2022. There’s roughly 79,900 blocks left until the next block subsidy halving which is estimated to occur between February 24, 2024 and April 20, 2024.
