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According to data provided by BTC.com, Bitcoin's mining difficulty has undergone an adjustment at block height 786,240, increasing by 1.72% to reach a record high of 48.71T.
This development coincided with the average hashrate of the entire Bitcoin network reaching a new peak of 348.6 EH/s in spite of the bear market.
Over the last 12 months, Bitcoin's mining difficulty has experienced significant fluctuations, starting from 29.79T on April 27, 2022, and reaching the aforementioned record high on April 20. This represents a 63.54% increase in mining difficulty over the year.
The mining difficulty has spiked in the majority of the adjustments. Over the past year, there have been only five instances where it decreased.
Mining difficulty is a measure of how difficult it is for miners to find a valid hash for a block of transactions. It adjusts approximately every two weeks, or every 2,016 blocks, to maintain a stable block time of roughly 10 minutes.
A higher mining difficulty makes it more challenging for miners to mine new blocks, which in turn makes the network more secure.
This increased security comes as a result of the computational power required to carry out a successful attack, which becomes increasingly difficult as mining difficulty rises.
The record high mining difficulty is a testament to the strength and resilience of the Bitcoin network, as it continues to attract more miners and investment.