Prices are falling, but miners just got a bit of “relief”—and it came at the cost of hashrate leaving the network.
Bitcoin mining difficulty was cut by 9.13% today, from 148.36T to 134.82T, at block 975,744, effective at 13:02 Beijing time. Average block times in the previous period stretched to about 11 minutes. When blocks are mined too slowly, the network automatically lowers the difficulty. With the same hashrate, miners could theoretically earn about 10% more coins.
But don’t take this as good news: difficulty is a lagging indicator. Its decline is precisely a sign that hashrate already left the network in the previous period. Bitcoin’s price has fallen about 46.7% from its October 6 high of $126,223, and some mining rigs have long since fallen below their shutdown price.
$BTC is currently at $67,316, down 2.92% in 24 hours, after hitting a low of $66,456 overnight. From this week’s opening price of $74,851, it’s down about 10.1%. $ETH is at $1,909.47, down 2.32%; SOL is down 5.86% to $75.80; XRP has fallen below $1, to $0.9904.
The next thing to watch: at the current pace, the next difficulty adjustment could bring another cut of about 6%. A return to block times near 10 minutes would be a sign that hashrate is coming back. This is not investment advice.
Bitcoin mining difficulty was cut by 9.13% today, from 148.36T to 134.82T, at block 975,744, effective at 13:02 Beijing time. Average block times in the previous period stretched to about 11 minutes. When blocks are mined too slowly, the network automatically lowers the difficulty. With the same hashrate, miners could theoretically earn about 10% more coins.
But don’t take this as good news: difficulty is a lagging indicator. Its decline is precisely a sign that hashrate already left the network in the previous period. Bitcoin’s price has fallen about 46.7% from its October 6 high of $126,223, and some mining rigs have long since fallen below their shutdown price.
$BTC is currently at $67,316, down 2.92% in 24 hours, after hitting a low of $66,456 overnight. From this week’s opening price of $74,851, it’s down about 10.1%. $ETH is at $1,909.47, down 2.32%; SOL is down 5.86% to $75.80; XRP has fallen below $1, to $0.9904.
The next thing to watch: at the current pace, the next difficulty adjustment could bring another cut of about 6%. A return to block times near 10 minutes would be a sign that hashrate is coming back. This is not investment advice.
