The bitcoin hashrate hit a record-breaking high following a period of tremendous growth. Although this is a positive development, it has significant implications on the Monday mining difficulty adjustment. The difficulty adjustment jumped double-digits as expected. This was well above even the most optimistic forecasts.
12.5% Difficulty Adjustments
Forecasts of the difficulty adjustment for bitcoin mining have put the price at a record high over the last week.
9-12%. They ranged from conservative to worst-case scenarios, but any of these would result in the network marking the greatest difficulty adjustment for 2022. These predictions were not accurate, however.
Monday’s mining difficulty, which measures how many hashes are required to mine one BTC block, increased by 13.5% to 31.36T from 35.61T. The higher difficulty adjustment is due to the growing mining power of bitcoin miners as they bring more machines online.
The mining difficulty has been adjusted by 13.5%. Source: Coinwarz| Source: Coinwarz
It is unlikely that the difficulty of mining bitcoins will decrease anytime soon. With an expected 11.3% rise in difficulty, Sunday October 23rd 2022 will see the next difficulty adjustment. Over the next three months the mining difficulty should increase by 22.5%.
Bitcoin hashrate is currently in decline from its record high of 321EH/s. The current bitcoin hashrate is 291.4 EH/s, which is a record for 2022.
Bitcoin miners will dump BTC
Bitcoin miner profits will be affected by the high difficulty adjustment. Their bottom line would be affected by the fact that they will need more computational power and higher energy in order to mine one block. The fact that bitcoin prices are dropping below $19,000 makes it difficult for miners to make ends meet.
BTC settlements exceed $19,000| Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
Some bitcoin miners were forced to sell their BTC holdings several times since the beginning of this year. This adjustment may trigger another downturn among them. Since it costs them a little over $18,000 to mine a single BTC, bitcoin’s tapdance below $19,000 put them dangerously close to recording losses on their mining machines, which could lead to sell-offs.
Bitcoin mining revenues stand at $17.16 millions per day. Miners produce a total amount of 900 BTC every day, mining 6.25 BTC at an average rate of 10 mins.
Featured Image from Bloomberg. Chart from TradingView.com
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