Bitcoin mining difficulty fell more than 5% on July 5, hitting a quarterly low of 79.50 terahashes (79.5T). This marked the largest drop since March, when difficulty briefly dipped below 80T.
Difficulty spiked between March and May, reaching an all-time high of 88.10T, before slowly declining to levels seen at the time of this article’s publication.
Mining Difficulty
Bitcoin mining difficulty is a measure of hashrate, which is essentially how many guesses a mining machine has to make before it solves the cryptographic puzzle needed to unlock one of the remaining bitcoins.
The hash rate is updated every 2,016 blocks, which takes about two weeks. Over the life of Bitcoin, the hash rate has generally increased every month, with a few exceptions.
For example, in 2014 the hash rate was around 1.1 gigahashes, which was low enough that most desktop PCs could mine Bitcoin (the higher the hash rate, the more powerful and energy efficient the equipment needed to mine profitably).
Related: Profitability issues after the mining industry halving
As adoption began to grow in late 2017, the hashrate first reached the terahash mark, and as of July 6, 2024, it will remain at 79.5T until the next difficulty update.
The F2Pool mining pool estimates that with the current difficulty of 79.5T, ASICs with a watt-per-terahash efficiency of 26 or less will be profitable as long as the Bitcoin price does not fall below $54,000.
“At $BTC price of $54k, ASICs with a unit power of 26W/T or less can be profitable. We estimate this at $0.07/kWh.”
If the price of Bitcoin falls further, miners will need more efficient equipment to remain profitable. If the price remains the same, conditions will be acceptable, especially for miners in areas where there are energy subsidies for mining facilities.