Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Surges 13.24% as Miners Returns to Duty

The mining difficulty in the Bitcoin network has soared to its highest point for the first time in 4 weeks. According to data from Coinwarz, the current Bitcoin difficulty is 17.62 T at block 697,571, resulting in a Bitcoin mining difficulty increase of 13.24 % in the last 24 hours. The current surge is the third time the BTC mining difficulty has increased in the past month as many miners regain their feet after the Chinese rout which began around May.

Mining difficulty is a measure of how easy or hard it is for the entire hoard of hardware linked to the network to mine Bitcoin. The more machines that are connected to the network, the faster it will be for computing power to be pulled together, validate the tons of transactions and earn the Bitcoin rewards. By default, when more miners a

re operating, the mining difficult adjusts to be more difficult and the reverse happens when miners are plugged out of the network.

Growth Still Below the Pre-China Ban Level

Despite the growth in the underlying difficulty in the Bitcoin network, the difficulty level is still  below the previous levels attained before the Chinese clampdown on mining activities. The three months peak that is needed to be tested is 25.0465 T, a level the difficulty is likely to retest at its current growth rate.

Mining difficulty is adjusted every two weeks. With the Chinese disruption, many mining firms operating in the Asian country have shipped out their hardware to other more receptive countries like Kazakhstan, Canada and the United States. Barring any delay in logistics, many will want to fasttack their deployment processes to tap into the year end frenzy that many analysts are already predicting.

For now, the mining difficulty is favorable to miners already plugged online. As difficulty is still sub-optimal, it takes a generally less effort for them to generate Bitcoin, and as such, they are bound to record more reward for their labor. This translates to profitability and shareholders in top publicly listed mining firms like Riot Blockchain are amongst the top beneficiaries of this reduced mining difficulty.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is changing hands at $48,872.29, up 1.20% in the past 24 hours