Bitcoin miners will finally be able to take a sigh of relief as the network’s hash rate has dropped by more than 10% in the past four days. The metric changed from 300.30 million on November 3 to 263.19 million on November 7. Interestingly, the hash rate was in an uptrend when seven of the top ten cryptocurrencies experienced a rally, including Bitcoin.
On November 3, the price of Bitcoin was $20,209 and reached $21,301 on November 5 when the hash rate was 276.50 million. As of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $19,760.
Compared to its peak in mid-August 2022, the mining difficulty for bitcoin is still very high. For instance, the difficulty was roughly 28.35 trillion on August 17, 2022, just before the year’s third-largest difficulty spike. Finding a block of bitcoin (BTC) is now more difficult than it was in mid-August, with the difficulty having climbed by 29.66% since then, reaching 36.76 trillion.
The network’s mining difficulty also provided some relief to Bitcoin miners because it decreased by 0.20% from two weeks earlier. The change from 36.84 trillion to 36.76 trillion marks the first mining difficulty decline in four weeks.The network’s mining difficulty decreased as a result of a decrease in block creation speed. As of this writing, block intervals are just over 10 minutes because the current block creation time is 10 minutes and 6 seconds.
Bitcoin’s fourth block subsidy epoch, also known as the next block reward halving, is anticipated to take place between April 13 and April 22, 2024. Given the relative volatility of Bitcoin versus other markets and the high cost of energy, this will make it even harder for miners to turn a profit. However, a direct increase in the demand for Bitcoin might tip the balance in favor of the miners.
According to analysts, the hash rate may decrease in the future while block times may rise to the ten-minute range, further lowering the difficulty percentage.