Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Hits Historic High a Week Prior to Halving

By: Isha Das

The difficulty of Bitcoin mining has hit a record high, increasing by 4% to reach 86.39 trillion hashes on April 10. This spike follows a steady growth trend observed since the start of the year which tracks the escalating computational challenges miners face with the premier digital asset network.

The rising mining difficulty is corresponding to Bitcoin’s rapid price climb beyond $70,000, buoyed by spot exchange-traded funds and the looming halving event. The Bitcoin halving event is expected to reduce Bitcoin block reward by 50% to 3.125 BTC, slated for around April 20.

The augmentation in difficulty has implication for miners as they would need to spend more computational power to mine a block. This reflects an uptick in miners joining the network and intensifying the computational workload. Concurrently, the collective network hash rate of Bitcoin is on the incline – averaging 639 exahash per second (EH/s) over a seven-day simple moving average according to hashrate index data.

Notably, despite the steady uptrend of the hash rate, Bitcoin's hash price has seen a substantial surge in Q1, attributable to Bitcoin's price leap by 67.0% - a boost that significantly exceeds the growth in hash rate.

While miners are central focal points of the upcoming halving event, analysts note that the supply reduction is diminutive in contrast with trading volumes and demands from spot ETFs. Nevertheless, the historical data signifies that although halving may not cause an immediate price surge, it critically influences Bitcoin's price cycles.