By the time it is expected to be halved, the Bitcoin mining problem has exceeded 80 trillion

Bitcoin's BTC mining difficulty surpassed 80 trillion on Friday, February 16, indicating how challenging it is to solve the mathematical problem associated with blockchain.

The network's hash rate, which measures the total computational power of miners, reached 562.81 exahashes per second (EH/s), and the mining difficulty reached a record 81.73 trillion, BTC.com reported. As of January 2023, Bitcoin mining difficulty is increasing steadily and is expected to reach 100 trillion in the next few months.

In Bitcoin's proof-of-work system, mining difficulty measures how hard it is to add a new block to the blockchain. Higher difficulty means miners need more computing power and energy to find the correct hash. In the past year, Bitcoin's difficulty level has more than doubled.

Since the automatic adjustment on February 15th, Bitcoin mining difficulty has increased by approximately 6%. According to the data of monitoring resource BTC.com, if it passes, it will take the difficulty to a new all-time high and more than 80 trillion for the first time.

Bitcoin clung to $52,000 at the February 16 Wall Street open as the latest US macro data came in better than expected. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC price action during the weekend TradFi trading session.

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Bitcoin mining rewards will be halved at the end of April during a period known as the ‘Bitcoin Halving'. To combat inflation, Bitcoin programmers bake into the token structure roughly every four years. The last time Bitcoin mining rewards were halved was in May 2020.

Bitcoin rewards will decrease from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC during the upcoming halving. This change may result in lower hash rates as less efficient miners find it challenging to cover their costs and withdraw. A reduced hash rate can reduce the difficulty of Bitcoin mining as the network seeks to maintain a stable block production every 10 minutes.

According to Galaxy Mining analysts, up to 20% of Bitcoin's hashrate could go offline after Bitcoin halving, which would halve rewards and stop only the most efficient miners.

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