BTC Mining Difficulty to Drop 20% Thanks to The Next Adjustment

The mining difficulty is the measure of the complexity of cryptographic puzzles that machines must solve to earn a reward. The next adjustment may change the current playfield dramatically reducing the difficulty by 20%.

The next adjustment is bound to happen at the block 689,472 which will be achieved within the next 5 days (about 2 July of 2021). The difficulty is supposed to drop by a whopping 21% which is the largest decrease in the history of BTC mining. Another important milestone is that the network recorded 3 consecutive drops of difficulty within a year.

Note that the mining difficulty is adjusting once every 2016 blocks and depends on the hash rate racing. Since the total hashing dropped dramatically due to the Chinese mining exodus and reached a year low of under 100 EH/s. The total hashing power determines how fast a bitcoin is made and the average time of block-making must be around 10 minutes. Since many farmers are out of the game for now, the difficulty will reduce.

The average production time was about 12.9 minutes by June 14 making it lag behind the intended rate by 30%. The significant slowdown of the process definitely puts a new perspective on the scale of Chinese mining operations and how they affected the global crypto community.

The big unplug

The power of the regional hashing network in China was reduced by 50%. Millions of powerful mining rigs were taken off the grid in a single month, with thousands of new listings appearing on the second-hand market. These machines are now unplugged and wait for either relocation or disposal.

The exodus affected not only Bitcoin but also Ethereum. The latter suffered a 20% drop in hash rates. However, these negative changes create a whole new set of opportunities and many devices are now moved to neighbors of China and even the Americas.

Many believe that the focus of the community is on moving their hashing networks to places with enough renewable energy. Other arguments can be made but we should not jump to conclusions. Some reports indicate that many farmers are waiting for the government to revert the ban after the 100^th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.