Bitcoin Network Adjusts: Mining Difficulty Rises 0.12% to 52.39 Trillion

Bitcoin miners saw a slight increase in mining difficulty on August 9, 2023, at block height 802,368, as the difficulty rose 0.12% from 52.32 trillion to 52.39 trillion. Over the last 2,016 blocks, miners recorded an average hashrate of about 376.5 exahash per second (EH/s).

Miners Experience a Slight Increase in Bitcoin Mining Difficulty

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty became a bit more challenging on August 9, at block height 802,368. At that time, the network’s mining difficulty rose 0.12% after a 2.94% decrease two weeks earlier at block height 800,352.

The network’s difficulty is now 52.39 trillion, requiring miners to perform a great amount of computational work to find a valid hash. The higher the difficulty, the more computational power and energy is needed to mine new blocks successfully.

Since the first change at block height 2,016, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has changed 397 times. Currently, on Aug. 9, 2023, the network’s hashrate is at 380.33 EH/s. The leading mining pool is Foundry USA, with 107.54 EH/s devoted to the BTC chain, accounting for 28.28% of the total hashrate.

Antpool follows Foundry with 95.3 EH/s, or 25.06% of the hashrate. Foundry and Antpool are followed by F2pool (55.96 EH/s), Binance Pool (35.85 EH/s), and Viabtc (31.48 EH/s). Approximately 41 mining entities are dedicating hashrate to the Bitcoin blockchain.

The next difficulty change is scheduled for Wednesday, August 23, 2023. Twenty-four hours before the change at block height 802,368, block times reached over 11 minutes, according to bitinfocharts.com statistics.

Block times were much faster on August 9, with the last block interval at block height 802,425 just over eight minutes. Therefore, if the block intervals consistently run faster at the eight-minute mark between a difficulty change, and the shift occurs before two weeks, the difficulty will be increased to maintain the target block times of ten minutes.

What do you think about the latest mining difficulty change? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.