Bitcoin miners caught a small break late Sunday evening (ET) after the network’s mining difficulty dropped 0.20% lower than the difficulty rating two weeks prior. The drop is the first mining difficulty decrease in four weeks, as the metric changed from 36.84 trillion to 36.76 trillion.
Bitcoin Miners Catch a Small Break as Network Difficulty Drops 0.20%
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is still very high compared to its mid-August 2022 highs. For example, on August 17, 2022, just before the year’s third-largest difficulty increase, the difficulty stood at about ₹28.35 trillion. At 36.76 trillion, data shows a 29.66% increase since August 17, which makes it 29% more difficult to find bitcoin (BTC) blocks today compared to mid-August.
While the 0.20% drop is a small decrease, it is still helpful to miners in contrast to the difficulty rising higher. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s total hashrate is around 269.86 exahash per second (EH/s). Records show that BTC’s total hashrate lifetime high (321.15 EH/s) recorded on Oct. 5, 2022, has been broken by a new record recorded on Oct. 31. On that day, at block height 761,186, Bitcoin’s total hashrate reached an all-time high at 327.35 EH/s.
The reason the network’s mining difficulty is low is because the block generation time has slowed down. The block interval at the time of writing is just over 10 minutes, as the block generation time is currently 10 minutes and six seconds long. This means, at least at the current pace, there could be another difficulty reduction when the cards change again on November 20, 2022. However, a lot can change in two weeks or the 2016 block, with the recent 0.20% drop helping miners.
Bitmain’s S19 XP Hydro Bitcoin Mining Rig With 255 Terahash Becomes the Most Profitable Mining Device
Three-day statistics show Foundry USA leads the pack when it comes to today’s top bitcoin mining pools. Foundry commands 31.47% of the global hashrate with 84.07 (EH/s) of SHA256 hashpower dedicated to the Bitcoin chain. Foundry is followed by Antpool, F2pool, Binance Pool, and Viabtc respectively. Unknown hashrate or stealth miners command the sixth largest pool position in terms of hashrate size, with 10.59 EH/s or 3.96% of the global hashrate.
Bitcoin’s fourth block subsidy era, or next block reward halving, is expected to occur between April 13 and April 22, 2024, after more than 77,000 BTC blocks have been mined. On November 7, 2022, the most profitable bitcoin mining rig is the Bitmain Antminer S19 XP Hyd. With 255 terahash per second (TH/s). At a very high power rate of $0.12 per kilowatt hour (kWh), the Bitmain-built model generates a profit of $11.01 per day. If the cost of electricity drops to $0.07 per kWh, the Antminer S19 XP Hyd. You can get an estimated $15.51 per day in profit.
