Bitcoin mining difficulty reaches all-time high, up 3.5% in latest adjustment

Bitcoin mining difficulty rose by 3.45% on Wednesday, reaching an all-time high, according to data from BTC.com.

Fast facts

• The mining difficulty reading was at 32.05 trillion, as of block height 753,984, the data showed.
• The difficulty level, which changes about every two weeks, has been on the rise since its Aug. 4 adjustment. It previously hit a high of 31.25 trillion on May 11.
• Bitcoin mining difficulty is a measure of how hard a miner would have to work to verify transactions in a block to add to the blockchain, or “dig out” Bitcoins.
• Such mining difficulty adjustments are highly correlated to changes in the mining hashrate — the level of computing power used for mining.
• Bitcoin’s seven-day average hashrate was at around 232.1 exahashes per second on Tuesday, up from a seven-day average of 222.7 exahashes on Aug. 31 when the previous difficulty adjustment occurred, Blockchain.com data showed.
• Bitcoin was trading at US$20,372 at 11:20 a.m. on Wednesday Hong Kong time, down 8.2% in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.