Bitcoin mining difficulty has reached its lowest level since March as the price is above 57 thousand dollars
Bitcoin mining difficulty fell more than 5% to a quarterly low of 79.50 terahashes (79.5T) on July 5. This marked the biggest decline since March when the issue briefly fell below 80T.
The issue peaked between March and May, when it reached an all-time high of 88.10t before gradually settling down to where it is at the time of this article's publication.
Mining problem
Bitcoin mining difficulty is a measure measured in hashrate, which is basically how many guesses a mining machine has to wait before solving the cryptographic puzzle necessary to unlock one of the remaining bitcoins.
Hashrates are updated every 2,016 blocks – which takes approximately two weeks. In Bitcoin's lifetime, hashrates typically mature over a month, with few exceptions.
In the year In 2014, for example, hashrates measured around 1.1 gigahash. This was the lowest most desktop PCs could spend Bitcoin (the higher the hash rate, the more powerful and energy efficient the device must be to be profitable).
Related: Mining industry challenges post-half profitability
In the year As adoption began to pick up in late 2017, Hashrats reached the Terash mark for the first time. And they will remain at 79.5T until the next crisis update from July 6, 2024.
At the current difficulty scale of 79.5T, mining pool F2Pool estimates that ASIC rigs with an efficiency rate of 26 per watt per terahash or better (minimum) will be profitable until the price of Bitcoin falls below the $54,000 threshold.
“At $54k in $BTC, ASICs with 26 W/T or less unit power can make a profit. We estimate this at $0.07 per kWh.
If the price of Bitcoin falls, miners will need more efficient equipment to be profitable. If it remains the same, conditions should be acceptable for large mines, especially in areas with power subsidies.
