In spite of China’s continued crackdown on cryptocurrency mining, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has once again decreased, making it easier to generate new Bitcoin.
According to data collected by Bitcoin explorer BTC.com, the Bitcoin network’s mining difficulty went down for the fourth time in a row on July 18. This decline amounted to 4.8%.
The mining difficulty was adjusted down at block 691,488 from 14.4 trillion to 13.7 trillion, the lowest level since June 2020. Having peaked at over 25 trillion on May 13, the difficulty metrics have dropped by nearly half in the intervening two months.
After a string of difficulty cuts, starting with a cut of nearly 16% on May 29, the difficulty of mining Bitcoin has been changed again. When it comes to mining difficulty, Bitcoin’s network experienced its largest dip ever on July 3 (-28%), following a 5.3% decrease on June 13.
How much processing power is needed to confirm transactions and make new coins is shown by a Bitcoin block’s mining difficulty. In order to keep the desired block duration of 10 minutes, Bitcoin is designed to automatically adjust the mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks, or around every two weeks.
As more miners leave China because of the government’s harsh crackdown on mining cryptocurrency, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty keeps going down. This decrease in difficulty is happening at the same time that both Bitcoin’s hashrate and average transaction fees are going down.
