After a slight drop of 0.49% on February 12, 2023, the difficulty of the Bitcoin network is expected to see a significant increase in three days on February 24. Estimates indicate that the difficulty could see the biggest increase of the year, exceeding the increase of 10.26%. which occurred on January 15 at block height 772,128.
Next Bitcoin Difficulty Change Expected to Rise from 10.78% to 11.5%
In 2022, Bitcoin’s hashrate remained above the 200 exahash per second (EH/s) range. However, in 2023, 300 PE/s seems to be the new normal. According to statistics, over the past 2,016 blocks, Bitcoin’s hashrate has averaged around 310.5 EH/s. Additionally, bitcoin block times ranged from 8 minutes and 55 seconds to 8 minutes and 68 seconds, which is faster than the 10-minute average. The high hashrate and faster block times indicate a significant increase in difficulty, which should occur on February 24.
Statistics indicate that the next difficulty adjustment, scheduled for Friday, will be the biggest of the year, surpassing the previous record set on January 15. The estimated increase for the February 24 adjustment is expected to be between 10.78% And 11.5%. The current difficulty is around 39.16 trillion hashes, and the next difficulty adjustment should push it above 40 trillion. An increase of 10.78% would result in a difficulty rating of around 43.35 trillion hashes. Regardless of the end result, an increase in difficulty will make it harder for bitcoin miners to discover new blocks.
As of this writing, the Foundry USA mining pool is ordering 33.33% of the network hashrate, i.e. 105.37 PE/s. Antpool accounts for approximately 18.66% of the global hashrate, spending 58.98 PE/s on the Bitcoin blockchain. Together, these two pools captured over 51% of the pie comprising 13 known pools and 11.93 PE/s of unknown hash power. After Foundry and Antpool, F2Pool, Binance Pool and Viabtc collectively control 33.54% of the global hashrate. These top five pools contribute 84.54% of the total hashrate that keeps the Bitcoin blockchain secure.
What do you think of the expected significant increase in Bitcoin’s network difficulty? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
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