Key Points
- Bitcoin mining difficulty reached a new high of 83.95 trillion hashes on March 14.
- Bitcoin’s price also hit a new all-time high of $73,835 on the same day.
On March 14, the difficulty of mining Bitcoin set a new record, reaching 83.95 trillion hashes. This coincided with Bitcoin’s price reaching a record high of $73,835, reflecting increased investor sentiment ahead of the anticipated Bitcoin halving in April.
Mining Difficulty and Bitcoin’s Value
Mining difficulty is an indicator of the complexity involved in mining Bitcoin. It involves solving cryptographic puzzles, the difficulty of which fluctuates based on the number of miners on the network.
The new difficulty high of 83.95T hashes represented an increase of 5.8% from the previous figure of 79.35T, recorded on February 29. This was achieved at a rate of 613.94 exahashes per second (EH/s), a 1.96% increase from the last cycle’s 602.14 EH/s.
Just under a month ago, on February 15, mining difficulty surpassed 80T, before falling again at the February 29 update. Projections suggest that the difficulty will rise slightly to 84.17T at the next check, scheduled for March 27.
Bitcoin’s Price and Mining Rewards
Simultaneously, Bitcoin’s price has continued to rise, benefiting miners. Mining rewards peaked at $78.89 million on March 11, surpassing the previous high of $74.4 million set in October 2021.
This surge happened as Bitcoin reached $72,953 on March 12, before falling back to $69,655. Similarly, on March 14, Bitcoin’s price rose to a new all-time high of $73,835, before dropping back to $69,813. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price has risen back above $70,000.
Experts in the cryptocurrency sector credit Bitcoin’s steady growth throughout Q4 2023 and into Q1 2024 to the upcoming halving event scheduled for mid-April.
The halving is an event where the block reward for mining Bitcoin is cut in half. The first halving took place on November 28, 2014, when rewards dropped from 50 to 25 BTC. The second occurred on July 9, 2016, reducing rewards from 25 to 12.5 BTC. The most recent halving occurred on May 11, 2020, when block rewards were reduced to 6.25 BTC.
