Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Exceeds 50T for the First Time

Bitcoin’s price is still stuck in a narrow range, but it has never been more difficult to mine the world’s largest crypto-asset than it is now. Its network fundamentals paint a decisively bullish picture.

According to data from BTC.com, the Bitcoin mining difficulty surged this week to 50.68 trillion, setting a fresh all-time high.
The latest difficulty adjustment occurred at block height 792,288, which added 3.4% on May 31st. This is the first time Bitcoin has recorded a difficulty level above the 50 trillion mark.
Further validating miner conviction and competition is the network hash rate, which is hovering near its all-time high of 400 EH/s.
Foundry USA led the pack contributing the most hash rate with a market share of 28.9%. Next up was Antpool with 22.6%, followed by F2Pool with commanding 14.1% dominance.
The surge is a welcome respite for the Bitcoin miners after suffering tremendously due to market turmoil last year.
The recent Ordinals craze, for instance, helped the miners of the network by pushing transaction fees.
In fact, the daily mining revenue hit a five-year high last month in what was touted to be a rare event.
Owing to Ordinals’ popularity, miners are now increasingly deploying more mining machines, thereby boosting the network’s computing power.
Meanwhile, most Bitcoin mining-related stocks in the United States recorded gains this week as President Joe Biden agreed to scrap the planned 30% tax on electricity used by the companies.
Riot Platforms led gainers among the major mining stock, followed by Iris Energy, Hive Blockchain, Cleanspark, Hut 8 Mining, and Marathon Digital Holding.