Bitcoin is facing a downward trend of lower highs and lower lows, with both technical and fundamental analyses showing a bearish momentum. At the time of publication, the price on CoinMarketCap was 90,567, representing a 3% and 8% decline in the past day and week, respectively.
Bitcoin's mining landscape has reached a remarkable milestone. The network’s difficulty adjustment, a measure of how hard it is to mine a block, has climbed for the eighth consecutive time, hitting an all-time high of 110.45 trillion.
This marks a 110.45 trillion-fold increase in difficulty since Bitcoin's inception, data from Glassnode showed. This reflects the network's resilience and the intensifying competition among miners.
The Difficulty Adjustment
Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment recalibrates every 2,016 blocks, or approximately every two weeks, to maintain an average block mining time of 10 minutes. This ensures that as the network’s computational power, or hashrate, fluctuates, the mining process remains consistent.
Currently, the 7-day moving average for the hashrate stands at an impressive 775 exahashes per second (EH/s), with projections suggesting it could reach 1 zettahash before the next halving, according to Coindesk.
Historically, such positive adjustments have coincided with significant market turning points. In the bull market of 2021, difficulty reportedly rose for nine consecutive adjustments, with the final increase aligning with Bitcoin’s record high of $69,000.
Conversely, during the bear market of 2018, 17 positive adjustments led to a sharp market downturn, with Bitcoin falling from $20,000 to a cycle low of $3,000, Coindesk reported. These patterns highlight a critical but ambiguous trend: prolonged difficulty increases often indicate heightened market activity but do not guarantee directional certainty.
Challenges for Miners
The rising difficulty presents significant challenges for miners, squeezing profit margins as competition intensifies. In response, some companies, like MARA Holdings, have diversified their operations, pivoting to high-performance computing and AI sectors.
Others, such as MARA, have adopted financial strategies like issuing convertible bonds and lending Bitcoin to secure additional revenue streams.
The surge in difficulty occurs against a backdrop of volatile Bitcoin prices, which recently retreated to around $90k amid macroeconomic uncertainties. Robust U.S. jobs data and expectations of steady Federal Reserve interest rates have dampened risk appetite, further pressuring the crypto market.
Currently, Bitcoin price is trading at an important support level below which prices could drop further. If the current level does not hold, the other support levels to watch are $87k and $76k.
This article was written by Jared Kirui at www.financemagnates.com.
