Bitcoin Difficulty Soars to Record 62.46 Trillion, Miners Unfazed Amid Tight Competition Between Foundry and Antpool

Bitcoin Difficulty Marks 2.35% Gain in Fourth Consecutive Gain

After a 6.47% rise on October 16, Bitcoin difficulty has increased again. On October 29, 2023, at block height 814,464, the network experienced a difficulty increase of 2.35%, rising from 61.03 trillion to a new high of 62.46 trillion.

These developments make bitcoin mining block rewards more challenging than at any point in history. Despite the increased complexity, bitcoin miners remain unaffected, maintaining a total hashrate above 450 exahashes per second (EH/s).

Currently, block times are still below the average of ten minutes, with data showing speeds ranging between nine minutes and 17 seconds to just above the nine minutes per block mark. A total of 42 mining pools contribute a minimum of 3 gigahashes per second (GH/s) to the Bitcoin blockchain.

Additionally, nearly 17 pools have a hashpower of more than 1 EH/s dedicated to mining bitcoin. As of October 30, 2023, approximately 26 mining pools were operating with approximately 1 petahash per second (PH/s) hashpower.

Just 48 hours ago, Antpool took control as the premier mining pool. However, the latest statistics show that Foundry leads with 27.02% of the total hashrate, while Antpool follows with 26.58%.

Together, these two pools account for 53.6% of the network's overall hashrate. Over the past week, Foundry and Antpool have been neck and neck in terms of hashrate, with Foundry slightly ahead on October 30, with 120 EH/s compared to Antpool's 118 EH/s.

source : Jamie Redman