The mining difficulty for Bitcoin increased by 3.9% on Tuesday, setting a new all-time high. This occurred as the seven-day moving average hash rate for the network also reached record-breaking levels.
The adjustment took place at block height 866,880, reaching a peak of 95.7 trillion, surpassing the previous record of 92.7 trillion in early September.
The measure of Bitcoin mining difficulty is not determined by a specific unit, but rather by its relative difficulty in finding new blocks compared to the easiest possible level.
Every 2016 blocks, which takes approximately two weeks, the difficulty automatically adjusts to maintain an average block discovery rate of 10 minutes, regardless of the number of active miners.
Prior to Tuesday’s adjustment, blocks were being mined at a faster pace of nine minutes and 37 seconds on average.
As the difficulty increases, miners require more computational power and energy to find the correct hash for the next block.
