Bitcoin mining difficulty climbed 3.6% on Sept. 11 to reach an all-time high of 92.67 trillion, according to

CryptoQuant revealed that the increase coincides with declining profitability for miners, putting further pressure on firms that have been struggling since the halving event in April.

Bitcoin mining difficulty

Bitcoin's mining difficulty undergoes an adjustment every two weeks after 2,016 blocks are mined, designed to maintain a consistent rate of block discovery.

When the difficulty increases, miners need more computational power to mine each block. This rise typically signals an influx of miners to the network, expanding the overall workload. A higher difficulty also strengthens the blockchain, requiring more energy to attempt network attacks.

Simultaneously, Bitcoin’s hash rate is rising consistently , averaging 693 exahashes per second (EH/s) based on a seven-day moving average.

The hash rate reflects miners' computing power used to process transactions and mine BTC. This metric represents the number of calculations mining equipment performs per second to solve the complex mathematical problems required to validate transactions and add new blocks to the blockchain.

Hashprice decline

Meanwhile, Bitcoin's hashprice, a measure of miner revenue , plunged to a record low of under $40 per petahash, according to Hashrate Index data .

Hashprice estimates the earnings of miners based on their mining computational power.

Nico Smid, founder of Digital Mining Solutions, commented :

“Hashprice attempted to recover but faced downward pressure, returning to its historic low point due to the difficulty adjustment.”

The persistent decline poses a significant threat to many mining operations, particularly those already operating at a loss since the April halving, which reduced their earnings to 3.125 BTC from 6.25 BTC.

This has prompted some miners to diversify their operations by offering services to AI companies. However, Luxor Technology observed that Fractal Bitcoin, a scaling solution native to Bitcoin, could potentially generate an additional $1.41 in revenue per PH/s/day for miners.

They mentioned :

“The coinbase reward on Fractal is 25 coins for each block. Currently, the market values each FB coin at approximately $15. Consequently, the total dollar value of FB coins available to Bitcoin miners per day amounts to 960 blocks x 25 FB x $15 = $360,000.”