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Bitcoin mining difficulty hits new ATH: What caused it?

Bitcoin's mining difficulty jumped to all-time highs over the past week, reflecting miners' confidence in the profitability of mining.

Written by Written by Aniket Verma
Reviewed by Reviewed by Aniket Verma
Updated August 26, 2023
Bitcoin mining difficulty hits new ATH: What caused it?
  • Bitcoin’s network hash rate bumped to a 4-month high.
  • Miners delayed selling their holdings due to their belief in the growth potential of BTC.

Bitcoin’s [BTC] miner activity is closely tracked by experts in the crypto ecosystem, as it provides vital clues into the network’s health and the level of profitability in the mining sector.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the BTC Profit Calculator

As per a post by on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, the network hash rate bumped to a 4-month high on 26 August. The previous 4-month peak was recorded more than a month ago on 7 July.

Miners switch on their machines

An increase in hash rate implied that more computational power was dedicated to validating the transactions and securing the network. The entry of more miners or use of more efficient machines generally leads to a spike in this metric. Overall, the increase is a healthy sign with regard to security and decentralization of the network.

The jump in hash rate propelled the mining difficulty to all-time highs over the past week. The mining difficulty adjusts automatically roughly every two weeks in order to keep the total block time at 10 minutes.

Source: Glassnode

In a statement shared by Bitfinex analysts to AMB Crypto, they revealed that the increase in mining difficulty was rooted in miners’ bullish expectations from Bitcoin.

“Miners could be confident that the price of Bitcoin will eventually rebound as this can be seen as a mere downwards deviation from its real value. Hence investing more resources to mine Bitcoin at these prices could be highly profitable to them.“

Are miners bullish on BTC?

The analysts further stated that miners delayed selling their assets due to their belief in the growth potential of BTC.

Glassnode’s data supported the above insights. It revealed that the total supply stored in miner addresses reached a monthly high of 1.83 million as of 26 August.

 

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-24

Remember that miners frequently cash out to meet their mining and power costs. A delay in liquidations generally means that they are waiting for Bitcoin’s price to gain more strength.

Miner earnings decline

Miners’ optimism about Bitcoin was a refreshing sign, especially in a phase when earnings have dried up considerably. Apart from the early-May euphoria over BRC-2o, Bitcoin miners’ revenues have stayed muted for the majority of the ongoing crypto winter.

Source: Glassnode
Disclaimer: AMBCrypto's content is meant to be informational in nature and should not be interpreted as investment advice. Trading, buying or selling cryptocurrencies should be considered a high-risk investment and every reader is advised to do their own research before making any decisions.

Aniket Verma

Aniket Verma works as a journalist at AMBCrypto. Contrary to most who are primarily interested in merely tracking price movements of cryptos, his focus is on examining the niche intersection between cryptocurrencies and traditional finance. A so-so Bitcoin maximalist, Aniket has a strong disdain for memecoins and the unfounded frenzy they seem to generate every market season. Coming from a strong engineering background, Aniket previously worked as a Content Manager for TV9 Network. Before his stint over there, he was an Associate Multimedia News Producer at Reuters.

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