Key facts:
Today’s difficulty adjustment represents a 4.78% increase from the previous period.
Bitcoin mining would remain just as profitable for two weeks, according to estimates.
Some achievements are more satisfying when they are more difficult to obtain. The security of Bitcoin is no exception, especially if you look at it from the side of miners, who are facing the highest difficulty adjustment in history this Thursday, February 17.
According to data from Coinwarz, the next period of difficulty will be 27.11 trillion, established at block 723,743, which represents an increase of 4.78% compared to the previous period. For its part, BTC.com records that the difficulty change amounts to 27.97 trillion.
This means that in recent days the number of computers connected to the network and the sum of the hashrate have increased, which, in fact, reached a new record a few days ago.
The number that defines the difficulty is set every 2016 blocks (added to the Bitcoin transaction history), approximately every two weeks. This parameter allows you to control the amount of BTC that is issued as a result of mining. Without this, bitcoins would be generated faster and faster as more miners are added to the network.
The recent Bitcoin difficulty adjustment coincides with a trend, which allows us to deduce that In recent months, interest in participating in this activity has grown despite the obstacles that many had in countries like China and Kazakhstan. Let us remember that the governments of these countries have taken measures to prohibit, regulate and, ultimately, hinder Bitcoin mining in their territories.
Will it still be profitable to mine Bitcoin now?
Despite the increase in total hashrate on the network, which means that there are more competitors for the BTC reward, the profitability of Bitcoin mining would remain stable.
According to data from WhatToMine, an Antminer S19 Pro, which has a hashrate of 95 TH/s, could have estimated returns of 0.00606 BTC per day (not counting operating cost), with an average electricity consumption of USD 0.20 kWh during the next two weeks. This means that a profit close to $140 in that period of time.
According to this tool, the estimate of speculative earnings in one week could be 0.004244BTC per week. If you want to learn how to use WhatToMine, take a look at the tutorial we did on CriptoNoticias.
The next difficulty adjustment will happen around March 2. It is estimated that during the days to come, more hardware will join the Bitcoin network, either as a result of the migration of miners from China and Kazakhstan or due to the arrival of ASIC models (specialized integrated circuit computers) on the market. to mine Bitcoin.
In this regard, hardware manufacturers such as Bitmain have already announced that new miner models will arrive during the first and second quarters of 2022, such as the Antminer S19 Pro + Hyd, which has liquid cooling and reaches a power of 198 TH/s.
The current difficulty setting does not represent a real obstacle for the industry, rather it expresses its growth and its level of security, since a more distributed network is more secure.