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Bitcoin’s mining difficulty climbed 5% to a record 150.84 trillion on Wednesday, marking the seventh straight upward adjustment, according to Glassnode.
Difficulty, which resets every 2016 blocks (approximately every two weeks), measures how challenging it is for miners to find new blocks and maintains the average block time at around 10 minutes.
The increase reflects continued growth in the network’s hash rate, now above one zettahash at 1.05 ZH/s. A higher hash rate signals more machines competing to secure the network, boosting security while raising the bar for profitability.
That pressure is showing up in hashprice, miner revenue per unit of hashrate ,which has slipped under $50 per petahash per second, Luxor data shows.
The metric briefly touched $52 when bitcoin traded above $118,000 earlier this summer, but has since drifted lower as difficulty rose and prices softened.
For miner margins to improve, one of three levers would need to move: higher fees, which remain at multi-year lows, a rebound in bitcoin’s price, or a slowdown in network hash rate.
Despite record difficulty and falling hashprice, mining stocks have rallied alongside bitcoin’s surge above $118,500, with Cipher Mining (CIFR) up more than 51% over the past month, Bit Digital (BTBT) gaining 25%, and Marathon Digital (MARA) climbing nearly 16%