On Sept. 10, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty rose 3.58% higher bringing the network’s difficulty to a new all-time high of 92.67 trillion. The news follows Bitcoin’s overall hashrate rising near the 700 exahash per second (EH/s) range when it tapped 693 EH/s.
Bitcoin’s All-Time High Difficulty Challenges Miners as Revenue Falls
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Rising Bitcoin Difficulty Puts Pressure on Miners
Bitcoin’s difficulty now makes it 3.58% more difficult to discover a BTC block from now until Sept. 24, 2024. The rise also brought the network’s difficulty up from 89.47 trillion to the current peak height of 92.67 trillion. According to the seven-day simple moving average (SMA), following Bitcoin’s 693 EH/s all-time high, the network has dropped down to 680 EH/s as of 8 a.m. EDT on Wednesday.
Bitcoin’s mining revenue is also quite low as the hashprice or estimated daily value of 1 petahash per second (PH/s) is hovering at $39.18. Onchain fees are significantly lower and only 1.7% of the past 24 hour’s revenue was made up of fees. A high-priority fee rate of six satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB) will cost $0.47 to process an onchain transaction.
The increased difficulty and low mining revenue are squeezing bitcoin miners, putting immense financial pressure on them to remain competitive. With a hashprice of just $39.18 per PH/s and onchain fees making up a mere fraction of earnings, miners face tough decisions ahead. Many will likely need to reassess operations, invest in more efficient technology, or pad the losses with more artificial intelligence (AI) work to survive.
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