Bitcoin miners are contending with the fifth network difficulty increase since February 24, 2023, following a 1.72% rise on April 20 at block height 786,240. The network’s difficulty now stands at 48.71 trillion, marking a 22.62% increase over the last 55 days since block height 778,176.

In less than two months, Bitcoin’s difficulty surged by over 22% and reached an all-time high on Thursday, April 20. The current difficulty of 48.71 trillion implies an exceptionally high average hash rate necessary for mining a new block. Specifically, a miner would need an average hashrate of 48.71 trillion hashes per second to stand a chance of mining a BTC block and earning the associated rewards and transaction fees.

As of now, the network’s hashrate hovers around 352.99 exahash per second (EH/s). According to coinwarz.com data, the hashrate peaked at 440.80 EH/s on April 18 at block height 786,013. At present, with a hashrate of 352.99 EH/s, bitcoin mining pool Foundry USA dominates with 116.49 EH/s or 32.96% of the global hashrate. The top five bitcoin mining pool rankings include Antpool (79.74 EH/s), F2pool (50.82 EH/s), Binance Pool (36.74 EH/s), and Viabtc (28.93 EH/s).

(by Jamie Redman)