Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Sees Its 2nd Largest Drop In History

By Kapil Gauhar

Bitcoin faced its second largest drop in its history, with a recent adjustment on Yesterday, according to the data provided by Chinese mining pool BTC.com

Bitcoin’s hashing difficulty algorithm is generally adjusted once every two weeks for maintaining the normal 10-min block time. It’s been adjusted for the second time in the present since the beginning of a so-called crypto winter in the middle of November, after which the difficulty in mining Bitcoin’s been dropping steadily.

The largest drop in the difficulty history of Bitcoin occurred on October 31, 2011, with an adjustment of 18% while another decrease in the middle of October 2011 is the third largest such decrease.

A massive market drop preceded a recent adjustment of the hashing difficulty of Bitcoin, with Bitcoin losing more than a 3rd of its price since 14 November, as indicated by CoinMarketCap. Financial watchdogs have attributed the market collide to regulatory pressure, the terrible condition of global markets and the hash rate war after controversial Bitcoin Cash hard fork.

The decrease in difficulty, somehow, is forcing miners to quit. The CEO of a China-based crypto mining pool, F2Pool Shixing Mao, revealed the data on mining profitability in September.

The break-even point for Bitcoin, according to Mao, was between $3,891 and $11,581, based on the make and model of equipment used. Bitcoin, at the time of the forecast, was trading around $6,400.

A week after the drop when Bitcoin hovered around $4,300, Chinese miners purportedly began to sell mining machines by weight, as opposed to price per unit. As indicated by an F2Pool post, miners are keen to sell the older models, including the Avalon A741, Antiminer T9, and Antiminer S7, as they have reached their shutdown price.

After the weekend’s mild recovery, where Bitcoin managed to stay slightly above $4,000, the dominating cryptocurrency has collapsed again. At press time, bitcoin is trading at $3,999.