- Bitcoin mining difficulty fell by 11.16%, marking the largest single-adjustment drop since China‘s 2021 mining ban.
- The adjustment follows a U.S. winter storm that forced major miners offline and a concurrent sharp decline in cryptocurrency market prices.
- Difficulty is projected to decrease by another 10.4% in the next network adjustment scheduled for February 23.
The Bitcoin network has recorded its most severe mining difficulty drop in over two years, falling 11.16% this week as extreme weather and market conditions forced miners offline. This adjustment, which took effect at block 935,429, pushed the difficulty to 125.86 T and increased the average block time beyond the 10-minute target, data shows. Consequently, the network’s next adjustment is projected to lower difficulty by approximately 10.4% to 112.7 T on February 23. This steep decline is the worst since the series of adjustments triggered by China‘s 2021 crackdown, which saw drops as high as 27.9%.
The recent downturn coincided with a broad crypto market crash that slashed Bitcoin‘s price by over 50% from its all-time high. Meanwhile, Winter Storm Fern swept across 34 U.S. states, disrupting power infrastructure and forcing miners to curtail operations. The world’s largest mining pool, Foundry USA, temporarily lost about 60% of its hashing power during this event. Its hashrate has since recovered to over 354 EH/s, and it commands a 29.47% market share, according to Hashrate Index.
However, the total network hashrate still declined to a four-month low in January. This drop is attributed to both the weather-related outages and a longer-term trend of miners shifting resources to AI data centers.
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