Bitcoin mining difficulty posted a record high on January 15, 2023, rising 10.26% to 37.73 billion at a block height of 772,128. The difficulty of the network is now at an all-time high. This means that, on average, it takes 37.73 trillion hashes, or attempts, to find a valid bitcoin block reward and add it to the blockchain.
The first difficulty increase of 2023 beats all but one of the difficulty increases of 2022
As of 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time on or about Sunday, January 15, 2023 286.36 exhash per second (EH/s) of hashrate is dedicated to Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. The Bitcoin network experienced a difficulty retargeting at 4:11 PM ET at block height 772,128resulting in an increase in 10.26%.
The difficulty was about 34.09 trillion last week and reached an all-time high (ATH) of 37.73 trillion on Sunday, making it exceptionally difficult to find a BTC to block. Before the difficulty increase on January 15, 2023, the highest difficulty rating on the Bitcoin blockchain was 36.76 trillion on November 6, 2022.
The current difficulty is 2.63% higher than the previous maximum. The January 15 difficulty increase also tops all but one of last year’s difficulty increases. In 2022, the largest increase in difficulty occurred on October 10, 2022, at block 758,016, when it increased by 13.55%. The price of Bitcoin has rose 22.7% more in the last seven days, which is beneficial for Bitcoin miners. However, the 10.26% difficulty increase will make the gains much tighter.
The new year started with a bang for Bitcoin, as the network hash rate hit an all-time high of 361.20 exhash per second (EH/s) on Jan 6, 2023, at a block height of 770,709. This surpassed the previous record of 347.16 EH/s set on November 12, 2022. The high hash rate has led to faster block intervals and increased difficulty which was recorded on Sunday afternoon.
With two records set in the first month of the new year, 2023 will be remarkable for miners. At press time, Bitcoin cost of production, according to macromicro.me datais an estimated $17,377 per unit, while BTC it is trading at $20,876 per coin.
Also, concentration of mining pools has grown significantly, with two mining pools commanding over 56.68% of the global hashrate in the last three days. Statistics show that the top mining pool, Foundry USA, commands 97.03 exahash per second (EH/s) hashrate, while Antpool has around 55.92 EH/s.
The next difficulty change is expected to happen around January 28, 2023, and the current block interval time is around 8 minutes and 26 seconds. Despite hitting an all-time high on January 6, the average hash rate over the past 2016 blocks has been around 268.9 exhashes per second (EH/s). At the time of writing, there are 67,846 blocks left to mine before the next reward halving, and an issuance of 1,736,531.23 Bitcoin (BTC) waiting to be discovered.
What do you think about the impact of the highest difficulty level of all time on bitcoin mining? Share your perspective in the comments section below.
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