Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Edges to All-Time High

On-chain data shows that bitcoin’s mining difficulty has crossed an all-time high with its latest jump, the second in two weeks.

• Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased by 3.45% at block height 753,984 to 32.05 trillion hashes.
• This is the second significant recent increase. On Aug. 31, the difficulty jumped by 9.26%.
• Given bitcoin’s compressed value, with recent declines on high CPI numbers, and a possible bottoming out as low as $10,000, profitability is narrowing for miners.
• Despite concerns about profitability, the average hash rate remains above 200 exahash per second at 229.39 EH/s, close to the all-time high of 231 EH/s.

• On-chain data shows that DCG-owned Foundry USA is currently contributing 28% of the total global hash rate followed by AntPool at 16.15%.
• CoinDesk is an independent subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, the crypto-focused conglomerate that also owns Grayscale and TradeBlock.