Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Exceeds 50T for the First Time

Bitcoin’s price is still stuck in a narrow range, but it has never been more difficult to mine the world’s largest crypto-asset than it is now. Its network fundamentals paint a decisively bullish picture.

• According to data from BTC.com, the Bitcoin mining difficulty surged this week to 50.68 trillion, setting a fresh all-time high.
• The latest difficulty adjustment occurred at block height 792,288, which added 3.4% on May 31st. This is the first time Bitcoin has recorded a difficulty level above the 50 trillion mark.
• Further validating miner conviction and competition is the network hash rate, which is hovering near its all-time high of 400 EH/s.
• Foundry USA led the pack contributing the most hash rate with a market share of 28.9%. Next up was Antpool with 22.6%, followed by F2Pool with commanding 14.1% dominance.
• The surge is a welcome respite for the Bitcoin miners after suffering tremendously due to market turmoil last year.
• The recent Ordinals craze, for instance, helped the miners of the network by pushing transaction fees.
• In fact, the daily mining revenue hit a five-year high last month in what was touted to be a rare event.
• Owing to Ordinals’ popularity, miners are now increasingly deploying more mining machines, thereby boosting the network’s computing power.
• Meanwhile, most Bitcoin mining-related stocks in the United States recorded gains this week as President Joe Biden agreed to scrap the planned 30% tax on electricity used by the companies.
• Riot Platforms led gainers among the major mining stock, followed by Iris Energy, Hive Blockchain, Cleanspark, Hut 8 Mining, and Marathon Digital Holding.