Bitcoin’s Latest Difficulty Rise Challenges Miners Already Facing Revenue Slump

On Aug. 28, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty bumped up by 2.99% at block height 858,816, pushing the metric from 86.87 trillion to a hefty 89.47 trillion. This tweak adds a bit more challenge for bitcoin miners, especially with hashprice values lingering at very low levels.

Bitcoin Network’s Difficulty Jumps as Earnings Dwindle

Bitcoin’s difficulty ticked up 2.99% on Wednesday, reaching 89.47 trillion, where it will stay until Sept. 10, 2024. The network’s difficulty metric essentially functions like a self-adjusting thermostat for the Bitcoin network, maintaining a consistent pace of block creation regardless of fluctuations in mining power. Simply put, if hashpower increases and blocks are mined too quickly, the difficulty rises.

Conversely, if the hashrate drops and blocks take longer than the ten-minute average, the difficulty lowers. The current difficulty of 89.47 trillion is just shy of the all-time high of 90.66 trillion set at the end of July. This adjustment makes it 2.99% tougher to mine blocks for the next 2,016 blocks. Bitcoin miners are already feeling the squeeze from declining revenues.

Right now, the hashprice, or the estimated daily earnings for 1 petahash per second (PH/s), hovers just above $42 per day. This figure has been on a downward slide since Aug. 25, dropping from $47 per PH/s to its current level. With hashprice dipping below $50 per PH/s, even the biggest publicly traded mining firms are feeling the pinch. This revenue slowdown likely plays a role in the growing centralization of bitcoin mining pools.

At the moment, two pools dominate the competition, contributing the most hashpower to the Bitcoin network. Foundry USA leads with 28.6% of the total hashrate over the past three days, closely followed by Antpool at 25.86%. Additionally, Viabtc and F2pool hold 11.44% and 10.98% of the hashrate, respectively. This means in a 72-hour period, the four pools mentioned above are responsible for discovering 76.88% of all Bitcoin blocks mined.

What do you think about the latest difficulty change and the hashprice at low levels? Do you think this trend may shift for miners? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.