Despite the current state of the crypto market, Bitcoin miners are having an even more difficult time producing blocks and running their operations. Bitcoin mining difficulty hit an all-time high, but an even more notable occurrence is that this uptick is the eighth consecutive one, which could mean several things for the budding crypto network.
Data from the Bitcoin analytics platform CoinWarz shows that the current Bitcoin mining difficulty is at an all-time high (ATH) of 110.45 trillion. This difficulty adjustment took place on January 13 at block height 878,976, representing a 0.61% increment from the previous value.
Mining Difficulty Hits New ATH
Bitcoin mining difficulty indicates how difficult it is to mine a new block on the crypto network. The adjustment happens every 2,016 blocks, approximately every 14 days, to ensure blocks are mined on average every ten minutes. The difficulty must increase to ensure the blocks are not generated too quickly, especially with more hashing power and mining machines added to the Bitcoin network.
The difficulty has increased by 6.29% in the past 30 days and 19.99% in the last 90 days. However, data from CoinWarz indicates that the next adjustment, occurring in the next 13 days, would take the difficulty from its ATH of 110.45 trillion to 109.54 trillion, representing a 0.83% decline.
Bullish or Bearish Signal?
Historical data shows that consecutive spikes in Bitcoin’s difficulty could be considered a bullish or bearish signal.
Per a Coindesk report, at some point during the last bull cycle, Bitcoin’s difficulty witnessed nine consecutive positive adjustments. The last one coincided with the market’s top–bitcoin (BTC), hitting $69,000 in November 2021. Afterward, the bear phase began.
However, in 2018, Bitcoin made similar adjustments without rallying like it did in 2021. After BTC hit its bull market top at $20,000 in December 2017, the crypto network made 17 consecutive positive adjustments until mid-2018. By the time of the next negative adjustment, BTC was worth around $6,000. This means that while Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased, the value of BTC declined.
In the current cycle, the Bitcoin mining difficulty began this uptrend on October 9 at 92.04 trillion. Since then, the difficulty has increased seven more times over the last 96 days. Although analysts insist BTC is still in a bull cycle and has room to grow, the asset has been struggling since the beginning of the year.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if BTC has hit its peak for this cycle. At the time of writing, it was changing hands at $91,00.
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