The difficulty of bitcoin mining, after an increase of 5.82%, exceeded its highest limits so far. This increase was in turn the result of a large increase in the installed mining power of the bitcoin network.
Installed mining power is the total computing power of bitcoin miners and the higher the power, the more robust and secure the bitcoin network is.
After a drop in power in early November, it began to rise again. The fall coincides with the end of the rainy season in China’s Sichuan Province, an area where many mining companies are seasonally located due to the lack of “cheap” energy from hydropower plants.
When the rainy season ends, the supply of cheap energy ends, so several facilities are dismantled to be moved to other areas in search of cheap energy.
The increase in extractive power continued until last February, when there was another decline, but it did not last. In recent weeks, mining power has shown an increasing trend again, reaching the highest power record, more than 166 million TH/s!
The difficulty of mining is a self-regulating parameter of the operation of the network and is one of the basic provisions of the bitcoin code.
Self-regulation takes place every time the 2.016 block min is completed, i.e. approximately every two weeks.
As the extraction power increases, so does the degree of difficulty. Respectively, with the reduction of the extractive power comes the corresponding reduction of the degree of difficulty, so that the operation of the network remains stable, in order to extract a block every ten minutes or so.
The data show that after the big drop in late October to early November, most of the adjustments increased the degree of difficulty. The latest increase of 5.82% brought the mining difficulty to the highest level of all time.
