Bitcoin's mining difficulty hits a new all-time high

The bitcoin mining difficulty jumped 9.89% on Monday, pushing the total rate to above 17 trillion for the first time. 

The difficulty rate, which benchmarks how difficult it is to mine a block and is adjusted approximately every two weeks, hit 17.34 trillion after its latest adjustment. The total network hashrate currently sits at around 124 EH/s. 

Positively related to the total network hashrate, the bitcoin difficulty has had a turbulent year thus far. At the beginning of the year, it was impacted by delays in mining machine shipments due to COVID-19. In May, the Bitcoin subsidy halving — when the block reward dropped from 12.5 BTC per block to 6.25 BTC — left a temporary dent on the total network hashrate. 

However, since early June, the difficulty rate has been slowly rising, along with an increase in total hashrate. BTC.com projects that the next difficulty adjustment will push the figure above 19 trillion.