Bitcoin miners are bracing for the fourth consecutive difficulty increase as hashrate skyrockets. Find out how this impacts the world of cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin miners are gearing up for their fourth consecutive difficulty increase, set to take place on October 30, 2023. Despite the formidable difficulty level of 61.03 trillion, the previous three surges failed to deter Bitcoin’s hashrate, which reached a historic high on October 12, 2023. Interestingly, block times have consistently been shorter than the traditional ten-minute average, indicating faster mining.
The surge in Bitcoin’s value has led to significant profits for miners, and major mining pools continue to contribute substantial hashpower. As of now, the hashrate hovers around 443 exahash per second (EH/s), with an expected increase in difficulty by 2.21% to 2.5% on October 30.
Around 42 mining pools are directing their SHA256 hashrate towards the Bitcoin blockchain, pushing Namecoin’s hashrate beyond 300 EH/s. Antpool, Foundry USA, and Viabtc are the leading pools, with more than 25,000 blocks to be mined before the next reward halving, expected in April 2024 or earlier if block times continue to expedite.
