Mining Bitcoin Gets Tougher as Difficulty Hits All-Time High with 8th Positive Adjustment.

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has reached an unprecedented level of 110.45 trillion, marking a significant milestone in the network’s evolution. This record-breaking figure represents how much more challenging it is to mine bitcoin compared to its genesis block in 2009.

The mining difficulty automatically adjusts every 2,016 blocks to maintain a consistent block production rate of approximately 10 minutes. This latest adjustment is the eighth consecutive positive increase, creating additional hurdles for miners in an already competitive environment.

The rising difficulty has spurred some publicly traded mining firms to diversify their operations. For instance, MARA Holdings (MARA) has issued convertible bonds to bolster its bitcoin reserves and leveraged its holdings to generate yield. Meanwhile, other miners are branching out into high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) to offset declining profitability in bitcoin mining.

This isn’t the first time the network has witnessed extended streaks of positive difficulty adjustments. In 2021, after China banned mining and slashed the network’s hashrate by 50%, Bitcoin underwent nine consecutive positive adjustments between July and November. That streak culminated with Bitcoin’s bull market high of $69,000 before a prolonged bear market in 2022.

Another notable example occurred in 2017, when Bitcoin recorded 17 consecutive positive adjustments during its climb to $20,000. However, as the bear market took hold in late 2018, multiple negative adjustments followed, coinciding with the market bottom near $3,000.

While consecutive positive adjustments don’t conclusively indicate market tops or bottoms, they often align with critical turning points in Bitcoin’s cycles. At present, the network is demonstrating robust growth, with a 7-day average hashrate of 775 EH/s. CoinDesk analysts suggest the network could achieve a milestone of 1 zettahash per second before the next halving, further strengthening its resilience and security.