This week, Bitcoin miners will face a record increase in mining difficulty, marking the most significant growth for the current year. This change is part of the natural network regulation mechanism aimed at maintaining an average block generation time of approximately ten minutes. Preliminary estimates predict that the difficulty may increase by 8.45% to 9.2%, surpassing the previous increase of 7.33% recorded in early February 2024.

This difficulty adjustment occurs automatically every 2016 blocks, based on the time spent mining them, and serves to adapt the network to changes in the overall computational power of miners. Recent observations show that block intervals range from 8 minutes 45 seconds to 9 minutes and 7 seconds, indicating increased mining activity.

The average network hash rate of Bitcoin, measured over the past seven days, remains around 597 exahashes per second, indicating a stable and high level of mining activity. This increase in computational power, particularly noticeable ahead of the expected fourth Bitcoin halving in April 2024, is pushing the network difficulty to new highs. The latest data suggests that difficulty may exceed 80 trillion, which would be a new historical maximum for the Bitcoin network.

These changes underscore the continuous development and adaptation of the Bitcoin network to changing mining conditions, as well as confirming the growing interest and investments in the mining industry, despite all the challenges and complexities.