Bitcoin’s mining difficulty just reached a record high above 20.6 trillion as more people are mining at a larger scale than ever before thanks to ballooning mining revenue and bitcoin’s parabolic price rally.
“A new difficulty all-time high is no surprise considering mining revenue has tripled in recent months,” said Edward Evenson, business development lead at Braiins, a mining software company that recently acquired full ownership of leading pool Slush Pool after being majority stakeholders since 2013.
Saturday’s adjustment at block 665,280 marks an 11% increase from the last adjustment on Dec. 27.
Difficulty is a relative measure of the amount of resources required to mine bitcoin that climbs or falls depending on the amount of computing power consumed by the network, known as its hashrate.
As bitcoin’s price continues to soar – almost touching $42,000 Friday – miner revenues keep pace, incentivizing even more participants to mine. Twelve months ago, bitcoin’s…