As bitcoin is coasting along under the $20K region, the network’s hashrate is still riding high at 250.04 exahash per second (EH/s) following the all-time high (ATH) the hashrate tapped on October 5. As of the writing time, blocks are being processed at a speed that is greater than the ten minute average block intervals (between the block height (757.531) and last difficulty adjustment). The network may experience the greatest difficulty rise this year due to block processing times that have increased by as much as 9% or 13.2% according to statistics.
Block Times and Hashrate indicate a notable increase in difficulty for Bitcoin mining on cards
On October 10, 2022 (the next retarget day), bitcoin mining will become more complicated. Two days ago, on October 5, the network’s total hashrate reached an ATH at 321 EH/s at block height 757,214. Although the BTC price is much lower, the difficulty remains near its last ATH. However, miners continue to dedicate computational power to the BTC Chain. The current hashrate rate is at 250 EH/s following Wednesday’s ATH.
Bitinfocharts.com data indicates that block times, which is the time between blocks, are currently faster than the 10-minute average. Block times at 9:05 a.m. ET are currently at 9.05 a.m. ET. Other dashboards, however, show blocks at an even faster pace at 8.49 minutes. With the average bitcoin block interval between the current height (757,471) and the last difficulty epoch (756,000) at 8:49 minutes, it means BTC’s network difficulty is due for a notable rise. There’s a chance that the difficulty jump on October 10 could be the network’s highest difficulty rise this year.
Data from btc.com shows an increase of around 9.34%, which would surpass the network’s second-largest increase in 2022. If btc.com’s estimate is correct, BTC’s network difficulty will rise from 31.36 trillion to 34.29 trillion. Metrics from Clark Moody’s Bitcoin dashboard show the difficulty change could be a lot higher and at the time of writing, Moody’s dashboard indicates it could be around 13.2% higher than it is today. Bitcoin still has 400+ blocks before the next retarget.
It’s quite possible the hashrate will slow and block times increase back to the ten-minute range. If so the difficulty’s percentage increase could be a lot lower than even Btc.com’s 9% increase estimate. Every two weeks or when 2,016 blocks are discovered, the network’s difficulty adjusts to make it either harder or easier to find a BTC block depending on how fast the 2,016 blocks were discovered.
If the 2,016 blocks were found too fast, the network’s algorithm adjusts the difficulty higher and if the blocks are found at a much slower pace, the difficulty rating can decline. At block height 689.472, the last significant difficulty drop was July 3, 2021. It was therefore 27% more difficult to locate a BTC block subvention than before block 689,472.
What do you think about the possibility that Bitcoin’s mining difficulty may see the largest jump this year? Comment below and let us know how you feel about the subject.
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