After a small decline of 0.49% on February 12, 2023, the Bitcoin network difficulty is expected to see a significant increase in three days on February 24. Estimates indicate that the difficulty could experience the biggest increase of the year, surpassing the increase of 10.26%. that occurred on January 15 at block 772,128.
It is estimated that the next Bitcoin difficulty change will increase between 10.78% and 11.5% more
In 2022, the Bitcoin hashrate remained above the 200 exhash per second (EH/s) range. However, in 2023, 300 EH/s seems to be the new norm. According to statistics, in the last 2,016 blocks, the Bitcoin hashrate averaged around 310.5 EH/s. Additionally, bitcoin block times have ranged from 8 minutes 55 seconds to 8 minutes 68 seconds, which is faster than the 10-minute average. The high hash rate and faster block times indicate a significant increase in difficulty, which is expected to happen on February 24.
Statistics indicate that the next difficulty adjustment, scheduled for Friday, will be the biggest of the year, surpassing the previous record set on January 15. The estimated increase for the February 24 adjustment is expected to be between 10.78% and 11.5%. The current difficulty is about 39.16 billion hashes, and the next difficulty adjustment is likely to take it above 40 billion. An increase of 10.78% would result in a difficulty rating of approximately 43.35 trillion hashes. Regardless of the end result, an increase in difficulty will make it more difficult for bitcoin miners to discover new blocks.
At the time of writing, the Foundry USA mining pool commands 33.33% of the network hashrate, or 105.37 EH/s. Antpool accounts for around 18.66% of the global hashrate, dedicating 58.98 EH/s to the Bitcoin blockchain. Together, these two pools captured over 51% of the pie comprising 13 known pools and 11.93 EH/s of unknown hash power. Following Foundry and Antpool are F2Pool, Binance Pool, and Viabtc, which together control 33.54% of the global hashrate. These top five groups contribute a combined 84.54% of the total hashrate that provides security to the Bitcoin blockchain.
What do you think about the expected significant increase in the difficulty of the Bitcoin network? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
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