While Bitcoin’s hashrate has remained above the 200 exahash per second (EH/s) mark, over the last two weeks the network’s mining difficulty has been at an all-time high (ATH) at 31.25 trillion. However, after 289 blocks are mined or roughly two days from now, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is estimated to drop 3.67% giving miners some relief after the recent difficulty ATH.
Bitcoin’s Next Difficulty Change Could Give Miners Pause
At the time of writing, the Bitcoin (BTC) network hashrate is around 210-225 EH/s after the network hit an ATH on May 2, 2022. On that day, the Bitcoin hashrate has reached 275.01 PE/s at block height 734,577.
Furthermore, since April 27, the blockchain network’s difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) increased two times and tapped a lifetime high at 31.25 trillion on May 10. The difficulty height has made it the most difficult time ever to mine BTC and on top of the DAA increases, BTC’s price has been down over 23% during the past 30 days.
Bitcoin miners are still profitable, but data from asicminervalue.com indicates that using current BTC exchange rates and electricity costs at $0.12 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) results in only 27 rigs mining companies benefit from it today. Antiminer S19 Pro + Hyd from Bitmain. with 198 terahash per second (TH/s) can earn an estimated profit of around $8.93 per day.
A Canaan Avalonminer 1246 with 90 TH/s can get an estimated profit of around $1.34 per day in BTC profits. While the difficulty is higher than ever before and the price is lower, bitcoin miners may catch a break in two days when the DAA shifts.
The estimated difficulty change, at least at the time of writing, could drop by 3.67% after mining 289 blocks. The difficulty will drop from 31.25 trillion ATH to 30.11 trillion ATH in two days. Of course, the estimated DAA could go up or down during the time it takes to mine all 289 bitcoin blocks.
Meanwhile, over the last three days, Foundry USA has been the top bitcoin mining pool in terms of blocks found and hashrate. Foundry commands 45.92 EH/s of hashpower which equates to 21.80% of BTC’s hashrate. The mining operation has found 87 blocks out of 399 over the last three days.
Bitmain’s Antpool controls 14.29% of the global hashrate or 30.08 PE/s. Antpool found around 57 of the 399 blocks found during the three-day period. Today, there are only 12 known mining pools that dedicate hashrate to the BTC network, and 0.25% of the hashrate is mined by stealth miners.
