Bitcoin Mining Difficulty At Lowest Since March
08 Jul, 2024 ● Coin news
Bitcoin mining difficulty dropped by more than 5% on July 5, reaching a quarterly low of 79.50 terahashes per second (TH/s), the largest reduction since March when it briefly dipped below 80 TH/s.
Difficulty spiked between March and May, hitting an all-time high of 88.10 TH/s before gradually decreasing to its current level at the time of publication.
Bitcoin mining difficulty is measured in hashrate, which represents the number of guesses a mining machine must make to solve the cryptographic puzzle necessary to unlock one of the remaining Bitcoin.
Hashrates are updated every 2,016 blocks, approximately every two weeks, and have generally grown month-to-month throughout Bitcoin's lifetime.
For instance, in 2014, the hashrate was about 1.1 gigahashes per second, low enough for most desktop PCs to mine Bitcoin.
By late 2017, as adoption increased, the hashrate reached the terahash mark for the first time.
As of July 6, 2024, it remains at 79.5 TH/s until the next difficulty update.
Under the current difficulty of 79.5 TH/s, mining pool F2Pool estimates that an ASIC rig with a watts per terahash efficiency rate of 26 or better would be profitable as long as Bitcoin’s price stays above $54,000.
“With a $BTC price of $54k, ASICs with Unit Power of 26 W/T or less can make a profit. We estimate this at $0.07 per kWh.”
If Bitcoin’s price drops lower, more efficient rigs will be needed to keep miners profitable. If it remains stable, conditions should be acceptable for the largest miners, especially those benefiting from energy subsidies for mining facilities.
Sources:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-hits-lowest-level-march-price-tops-57-k
https://twitter.com/f2pool_official/status/1809155768874328456
