According to recent analytics, Bitcoin mining difficulty level reached a new peak on the last Thursday, rising by 3.22%, along with the network’s hash rate also hitting an all-time high. This means that the miners have to work harder to verify transactions on a block and earn rewards. The difficulty levels adjust approximately every two weeks to maintain a steady block production rate.
Why is this Happening to Bitcoin?
The latest difficulty adjustment on May 4 reduced the mining difficulty by 1.45% to 49.55 trillion at block height 790,272, according to Blockchain.com. This is a measure of how hard it is to find a valid hash for a new block on the Bitcoin network.
The difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks, to keep the average block time at 10 minutes. The hash rate reached a new all-time high of about 368.5 exahashes per second on Wednesday, according to Blockchain.com, up from 350.8 exahashes.
The rising difficulty and hash rate indicate that Bitcoin mining is becoming more competitive and profitable, as more miners join the network and invest in more efficient hardware.
Bitcoin mining is also becoming more environmentally friendly, as more miners use renewable energy sources and adopt carbon-neutral practices. Making the network more secure and efficient than ever before.
CoinWarz estimates that the next difficulty adjustment will increase an extra 2.21% by the end of the week.
Concerns Regarding Higher Levels Mining Difficulties
As Bitcoin mining difficulty reaches a new all-time high. Those who criticized cryptocurrency mining for its negative impact on the environment have risen once again to continue bashing Bitcoin for its “enormous” carbon footprint.
However, there is a growing number of companies investing in new technologies to turn Bitcoin mining to be a positive addition to humanity’s complicated relationship with energy and sustainability.
One of the leading new ideas is to use the excess heat generated by mining for different purposes, heating houses during the winter like North Vancouver plans to do in the upcoming years.
As Bitcoin mining becomes more difficult, there are ample opportunities for entrepreneurs to use what could be perceived as a “bad” thing and turn it into something helpful.
