Bitcoin Network’s Mining Difficulty Rises to All-Time High, Making Block Discovery More Challenging
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty printed a record increase on Jan. 15, 2023, rising 10.26% to 37.73 trillion at block height 772,128. The network’s difficulty is now at an all-time high. This means, on average, it takes 37.73 trillion hashes, or attempts, to find a valid bitcoin block reward and add it to the blockchain. 2023’s First Difficulty Increase Outpaces All but One of the Difficulty Increases in 2022 As of 8:15 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, approximately 286.36 exahash per second (EH/s) of hashrate is dedicated to the Bitcoin ( BTC ) blockchain. The Bitcoin network experienced a difficulty retarget at 4:11 p.m. Eastern time, at block height 772,128 , resulting in an increase of 10.26% . The difficulty was approximately 34.09 trillion last week, and it reached an all-time high (ATH) of 37.73 trillion on Sunday, making it exceptionally difficult to find a BTC block. Prior to the Jan. 15, 2023, difficulty increase, the highest difficulty rating on the Bitcoin block