Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Records Largest Drop in History; Price Jumps
 
Miners who remain operational are likely to become even more profitable over the coming weeks.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-difficulty-largest-drop-in-history

The Bitcoin blockchain has undergone its biggest-ever drop in mining difficulty, as the network’s automatic stabilizing mechanism kicked in following a strict crackdown by China on the country’s cryptocurrency industry.

At 6:25 UTC Saturday, mining difficulty plunged by nearly 28% at block 689,471.

The steep decline in difficulty led to corresponding plunge in transaction fees, which in turn may have contributed to a $1,000 surge in the price of the leading cryptocurrency on anticipation of a spurt in transactions, according to one observer. In recent trading, the price of BTC was at $34,738, up 3.58% in the last 24 hours. Before the reduction in mining difficulty, BTC was about $33,700.

Charlie Morris, CIO of ByteTree Asset Management, tweeted hours after the difficulty cut that fees had dropped to $6 from $10 yesterday.

The adjustment marks the third straight decline in mining difficulty, the first time such a trend has happened since December 2018. On May 29 and June 13, the mining difficulty dropped by 16% and 5%, respectively, according to mining service provider BTC.com.  

What is Bitcoin mining difficulty?

Bitcoin’s difficulty is measured using an internal score that began at 1 (when Satoshi started mining at the easiest level). It is programmed to increase or decrease incrementally depending on how many miners are competing on the network. It is currently scored at 14,363,025,673,659, down from 19,932,791,027,262.