{"id":7719,"date":"2022-10-09T08:49:21","date_gmt":"2022-10-09T08:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/?p=7719"},"modified":"2022-10-09T08:49:22","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T08:49:22","slug":"current-block-times-and-estimates-suggest-bitcoins-mining-difficulty-is-about-to-catapult-much-higher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/?p=7719","title":{"rendered":"Current Block Times and Estimates Suggest Bitcoin\u2019s Mining Difficulty Is About to Catapult Much Higher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\namzn_assoc_placement = \"adunit0\";\r\namzn_assoc_tracking_id = \"totafreearti-20\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_mode = \"search\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_type = \"smart\";\r\namzn_assoc_marketplace = \"amazon\";\r\namzn_assoc_region = \"US\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = \"crypto\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_category = \"All\";\r\namzn_assoc_search_bar = \"false\";\r\namzn_assoc_title = \"\";\r\namzn_assoc_rows =\"1\";\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"\/\/z-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/onejs?MarketPlace=US\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>As bitcoin is coasting along under the $20K region, the network\u2019s hashrate is still riding high at 250.04 exahash per second (EH\/s) following the all-time high (ATH) the hashrate tapped on October 5. At the time of writing, the current speed at which blocks are processed is faster than the typical ten-minute average block intervals between the current block height (757,531) and the last difficulty adjustment. Statistics show that because block times have been much faster, the network could see the largest difficulty increase this year, as estimates show a possible jump between 9% to 13.2% higher.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Block Times and Hashrate Suggest a Notable Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Increase in the Cards<\/h2>\n<p>Bitcoin mining is looking to become a whole lot more difficult on the next retarget date which will occur on October 10, 2022. Two days ago, on October 5, the network\u2019s total hashrate reached an ATH at 321 EH\/s at block height 757,214. While the price of BTC is lower and the difficulty is near the last ATH, miners are relentlessly dedicating computational power to the BTC chain. At the moment, the hashrate is coasting along at 250 EH\/s after the ATH was reached on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Currently, block times (the interval between each block mined) are faster than the ten-minute average, bitinfocharts.com data shows. Presently, at 9:00 a.m. (ET), metrics show block times are around 9:05 minutes but other dashboards show a much faster rate at 8:49 minutes. With the average bitcoin block interval between the current height (757,471) and the last difficulty epoch (756,000) at 8:49 minutes, it means BTC\u2019s network difficulty is due for a notable rise. There\u2019s a chance that the difficulty jump on October 10 could be the network\u2019s highest difficulty rise this year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Data from btc.com shows an increase of around 9.34%, which would surpass the network\u2019s second-largest increase in 2022. If btc.com\u2019s estimate is correct, BTC\u2019s network difficulty will rise from 31.36 trillion to 34.29 trillion. Metrics from Clark Moody\u2019s Bitcoin dashboard show the difficulty change could be a lot higher and at the time of writing, Moody\u2019s dashboard indicates it could be around 13.2% higher than it is today. The Bitcoin network has roughly 400+ blocks to go until the next retarget.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s quite possible the hashrate will slow and block times increase back to the ten-minute range. If so the difficulty\u2019s percentage increase could be a lot lower than even Btc.com\u2019s 9% increase estimate. Every two weeks or when 2,016 blocks are discovered, the network\u2019s difficulty adjusts to make it either harder or easier to find a BTC block depending on how fast the 2,016 blocks were discovered.<\/p>\n<p>If the 2,016 blocks were found too fast, the network\u2019s algorithm adjusts the difficulty higher and if the blocks are found at a much slower pace, the difficulty rating can decline. The last significantly large difficulty reduction took place on July 3, 2021, when the difficulty dropped by 27.94% at block height 689,472. That means it was 27% easier to find a BTC block subsidy than it was prior to block 689,472.<\/p>\n<p>Tags in this story<\/p>\n<p>13.2%, 2016 Blocks, 34.29 trillion, 9, All time high, ATH, Bitcoin mining, Bitcoin network, block intervals, block times, Blocks, BTC Mining, BTC.com, Clark Moody\u2019s Bitcoin dashboard, computational power, discovery speed, Hashpower, Hashrate, hashrate ATH, July 3 2021, Largest Jump, Miners, mining, October 10 2022, October 5 2022, speed<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>What do you think about the possibility that Bitcoin\u2019s mining difficulty may see the largest jump this year? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Jamie Redman <\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body__author__info__about\">\nJamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.<\/p>\n<p><i class=\"td-icon-font td-icon-twitter\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"images_credits\"><em>Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Disclaimer<\/strong>: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.<\/p>\n<p>More Popular NewsIn Case You Missed It<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\namzn_assoc_placement = \"adunit0\";\r\namzn_assoc_tracking_id = \"totafreearti-20\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_mode = \"search\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_type = \"smart\";\r\namzn_assoc_marketplace = \"amazon\";\r\namzn_assoc_region = \"US\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = \"bitcoin\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_category = \"All\";\r\namzn_assoc_search_bar = \"false\";\r\namzn_assoc_title = \"\";\r\namzn_assoc_rows =\"1\";\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"\/\/z-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/onejs?MarketPlace=US\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/current-block-times-and-estimates-suggest-bitcoins-mining-difficulty-is-about-to-catapult-much-higher\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As bitcoin is coasting along under the $20K region, the network\u2019s hashrate is still riding high at 250.04 exahash per second (EH\/s) following the all-time high (ATH) the hashrate tapped on October 5. At the time of writing, the current speed at which blocks are processed is faster than the typical ten-minute average block intervals [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crypto-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7721,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7719\/revisions\/7721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}