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Bitcoin Difficulty Increases 6% — It’s Still 48% Easier to Find BTC Blocks Than It Was 30 Days Ago

01/08/2021 by Idelto Editor

As expected, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased this week jumping 6.03% higher on July 31. The change marks the first increase out of five difficulty adjustment changes. This was after four downward difficulty drops made it 54% easier to mine bitcoin than it was prior to mid-May.

Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Increases 6%, Difficulty Is Expected to Increase Again in 11 Days

On July 31, at block height 693,504, the Bitcoin blockchain’s difficulty adjusts itself depending on how much hashpower is dedicated to the network. The more hashrate dedicated to the BTC chain, the higher the difficulty will rise every two weeks. On the other hand, if a great number of miners go offline and dedicated hashrate drops, the difficulty will drop making it easier for mining participants to find BTC blocks.

Bitcoin’s system and how it works is mathematically predictable, which is a stark difference from the shadow finance system the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have participated in for decades. Because Bitcoin is transparent, we know that every 2016 blocks, the difficulty will change to keep the block generation time around 10 minutes. This means we know that as of 1:00 p.m. (EDT), there’s 1,782 blocks left or 11 days until the next difficulty change.

While the last four difficulty changes made it 54% easier to mine than before May 13, the difficulty increased for the first time in eight weeks by a touch over 6%. This is because miners who went offline during the crackdown in China, have seemingly returned to some extent.

At the time of writing the hashrate is over 100 exahash per second (EH/s) at around 114 EH/s on Sunday. That’s a lot better than it was 33 days ago when 90-day recorded stats showed the hashrate down to 69 EH/s on June 28. That drop in hashrate led to the massive 27.94% decline in difficulty at block height 689,472.

Antpool Commands the Top Spot, Unknown Hash Captures 10% of the Network, Slight 1% Increase Expected

At the time of writing, the mining operation Antpool is the largest bitcoin mining entity, in terms of overall dedicated hashrate. 15.48% of BTC’s SHA256 hashrate stems from Antpool which is around 17.13 EH/s of hashpower. Antpool is followed by Viabtc (14.87 %), Binance Pool (11.00 %), Poolin (10.18 %), and the pool operated by Btc.com (9.98 %). These five pools combined capture 61.51% of BTC’s global hashrate today.

Furthermore, stealth miners or 9.98 % of the global hashrate is owned by “unknown miners” with around 11.04 EH/s of hashpower. As of the mid-afternoon hours on Sunday, the current hashrate leads calculations to assume that the next difficulty change will be an increase again.

Despite the increase on Saturday, BTC blocks are still 48% easier to find today than they were before May 13, 2021. Estimates show on Sunday that the difficulty is expected to rise again in 11 days and increase around 1%. However, depending on hashrate speed, the estimate could change higher or lower as the countdown gets closer.

Today, the difficulty is around 14.5 trillion and is expected to increase to 14.65 at the next difficulty change.

What do you think about the recent increase in mining difficulty? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

ETH Compatible BCH Sidechain Smartbch Successfully Launches Three Nodes

31/07/2021 by Idelto Editor

The day before the fourth Bitcoin Cash anniversary, the Smart Bitcoin Cash team (Smartbch), announced the project has launched three nodes as genesis validators. Smartbch disclosed that Btc.com, Viabtc, and Matrixport are participating and the project has officially started its voting period.

Smartbch Fires up Smart Chain’s Genesis Validators

For quite some time now, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community has been patiently waiting on the development of the Smartbch project. The reason for this is because Smartbch could unlock massive potential between Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin Cash.

The protocol could bolster decentralized finance (defi) on Bitcoin Cash and be compatible with the second largest crypto asset in terms of market capitalization. Bitcoin.com News first reported on Smartbch during the first week of April and interviewed the project’s lead developer 15 days later.

By the end of the month, Smartbch launched the testnet publicly and which gives developers and decentralized app makers the ability to experiment and develop with the high-performance, EVM-compatible Bitcoin Cash sidechain. Now Smartbch has now fired up its engines with three nodes acting as the genesis validators.

The three Smartbch nodes are operated by Viabtc, Matrixport, and Btc.com. “Smartbch is now in its first voting period,” the project’s announcement explains. “More validators will be elected by SHA256 miners and will take on the duty in the future.”

“We have spent two more months in development than the original estimation to finalize the data structure of MoeingADS and to implement SEP101, SEP206, and Transaction Reorder onto Smartbch,” the Smartbch development team adds.

“MoeingADS is the underlying storage engine for the world state, which is very hard to change in hard forks,” the Smartbch devs say. “Ethereum’s underlying storage engine MPT has never modified its data structure since the beginning. MoeingADS is now strong enough to support 51K TPS and can support Smartbch’s growth for many years without changing its primary data structure.”

Focusing on a Secure Cross-Chain Bridge

The Smartbch team says the project will take a lot of time to make the protocol robust. During the last few weeks, the developers noticed a number of defi projects that suffered from exploits and it was due to cross-chain bridge vulnerabilities.

The Smartbch team aims to strengthen the Bitcoin Cash sidechain’s cross-chain gateway so it is very secure and powerful. “It will take security as the priority and be audited by the community,” the Smartbch team says.

“The launch is a solid step in Smartbch’s long journey,” the project’s creators conclude. “We invite everybody from the BCH community to use it and help its growth. We’ll soon provide some guides for BCH holders to try it and transfer a limited amount of coins cross-chain through the current simple gateway.”

What do you think about Smartbch launching three nodes for genesis validators and the focus on the cross-chain bridge? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

4 Consecutive Difficulty Drops Make Bitcoin Block Rewards 49% Easier to Find

16/07/2021 by Idelto Editor

Following the largest mining difficulty drop in Bitcoin’s history, this weekend will once again see another slide, but less than 6% of the difficulty will be shaved. Statistics show Bitcoin’s hashrate has been able to climb higher since the difficulty drop two weeks ago, and climbed above 100 exahash per second (EH/s) this week. This weekend’s upcoming bitcoin mining difficulty drop will be the only time in history the difficulty slipped four times in a row.

2021’s Consecutive Difficulty Drops Come Awfully Close to 2011’s Records

After China cracked down on bitcoin miners at the end of June, a large quantity of hashpower had temporarily halted. Statistics indicate that the hashrate was around 66 EH/s on June 28 and since then it has increased to above the 100 EH/s zone.

There’s currently 18 known mining pools dedicating hashrate to the BTC chain, and 4.71 % of the global hashrate (24-hour stats) or 4.79 EH/s belongs to unknown miners.

Two weeks ago the Bitcoin network saw the largest difficulty drop ever and another difficulty drop is expected this weekend. Using today’s average hashrate, statistics show the drop will be less than 6% bringing the current difficulty of 14.36 trillion down to 13.5 trillion.

This means after the dip, the mining difficulty will have dropped four times in a row. The last time the BTC mining difficulty dropped more than four times in a row was in 2011. From August to November 2011, the mining difficulty dropped eight times in a row.

2018 Saw Three Difficulty Drops in a Row, Five Mining Pools Currently Command 59% of Bitcoin’s Hashrate

The only other time BTC’s mining difficulty came close to the four times in a row record was in 2018 for three consecutive difficulty drops between November and December.

The most recent number of difficulty drops saw 49.21% shaved off the difficulty, which is slightly less than the 51.54% shed in 2011. Back then, the difficulty tapped a high of 1.89 million in August and by November it was 1.09 million at block height 155,232.

At the time of writing, the top mining pools on Friday afternoon include Viabtc, Antpool, Poolin, F2pool, and Btc.com. These pools are followed by Binance, Foundry and Slushpool, but the top five operations command 59.4% of the global hashrate.

Binance, Foundry and Slushpool capture 21.9% of BTC’s hashpower on Friday afternoon. That leaves ten known pools and 4.79 EH/s of unknown hashpower, commanding 18.7% of the global hashrate.

What do you think about the four difficulty drops in 2021 compared to the eight drops in 2011? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

University of Cambridge Bitcoin Mining Map Shows China’s Hashrate Dropped to 46%

15/07/2021 by Idelto Editor

After the researchers from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) project said that the website’s “Bitcoin Mining Map” had not been updated since April 2020, the map has finally been updated. Current data from the mining map shows the coverage goes all the way up until April 2021, and the estimate of China’s hashrate dominance is much lower than previous estimates.

New Estimates Show China Has Less Hashrate Than Previous Statistics

University of Cambridge data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) indicates that China has a lot less hashrate dominance than once thought. On June 19, Bitcoin.com News reported on how difficult it was to estimate how much hashrate is actually residing in China.

While writing that specific report, the CBECI project explained on its website that the Bitcoin Mining Map had not been updated since April 2020. Furthermore, in December 2020, Bitcoin.com News was told at the time the “CBECI map hasn’t been updated for some time now” by a University of Cambridge researcher.

Today, that has changed and the CBECI map has a lot more updated information at least up until April 2021. So this means the CBECI map won’t account for the mass migration of Chinese bitcoin miners that followed the month of April.

Cambridge Bitcoin Mining Map Shows China's Hashrate Dominance Dropped to 46% — The bitcoin mining map hosted on the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) website.

However, the updated CBECI map does show China’s hashrate dominance in April was around 46%. That figure is a lot lower than the older estimate before the update which was 65%. The U.S. captures 16.8% and Kazakhstan follows behind America with 8.19%, according to CBECI’s “Evolution of country share” statistics.

The University of Cambridge researchers leverage sample data from geolocational mining facilities and several bitcoin mining pools. Partners that help contribute to the CBECI map include Poolin, Viabtc, Btc.com, and Foundry.

The CBECI map also highlights the “Evolution of Chinese provinces share” in another chart dedicated to these statistics. The dominance of Chinese provinces stem from areas like Sichuan (16.4%), Xinjiang (54.4%), Yunnan (8.7%), Nei Mongol (3.7%), Gansu (1.3%) Zhejiang (0.2%), Beijing (4.8%), Qinghai (2.3%), and unknown regions (8.1%).

As far as other countries besides China, the U.S., and Kazakhstan, the CBECI map shows the Russian Federation has around 6.84% of the global hashrate. This is followed by unknown regions capturing 5.92%, Iran 4.64%, Malaysia 3.44%, Canada 3%, Germany 2.81%, and Ireland 2.27%.

After not updating the data for quite some time, the CBECI research team notes that updates are now “scheduled on a monthly basis and are subject to data availability (generally with a delay of one to three months).”

What do you think about the latest update on how much hashrate is located in China? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Bitcoin Blocks Will Soon Be 27% Easier to Find — Miners Brace for the Largest Difficulty Drop in BTC’s Lifetime

03/07/2021 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin, the leading crypto asset in terms of market capitalization, has seen the cryptocurrency’s network hashrate drop considerably during the last two weeks. On Saturday, July 3, the network’s mining difficulty will see the largest epoch drop in history as the difficulty is set to slide by more than 27%.

Bitcoin Difficulty Expected to Drop More Than 27%

This weekend, Bitcoin (BTC) is set to experience the largest difficulty drop ever recorded during the crypto asset’s lifetime. At the time of writing, BTC’s mining difficulty is 19.93 trillion and is expected to drop 27.04% by Saturday morning (EDT). In bitcoin mining, the network’s difficulty is the parameter that keeps the average time between BTC blocks consistent.

The difficulty parameter is the metric that shows how difficult it is to mine a bitcoin block and the higher the difficulty, the more hashpower is needed to find a block.

Bitcoin Blocks Will Soon Be 27% Easier to Find — Miners Brace for the Largest Recorded Difficulty Drop in BTC's Lifetime — If the difficulty drops by 27% on Saturday, it is expected to be around 14.54 trillion.

When the mining difficulty on the network is lower, it is far easier for bitcoin miners to find blocks. A difficulty that keeps rising alongside the hashrate means an attacker will have to spend enormous amounts of resources to breach the system.

Bitcoin’s upcoming difficulty change comes at a time when Chinese miners have been told to operate elsewhere and a great portion of hashpower went offline this past Monday. During the last BTC difficulty change at block height 687,456 on June 13, 2021, the global hashrate was around 142.68 exahash per second (EH/s).

Since block height 687,456, BTC’s hashrate dropped by 39% to 86.5 EH/s. Bitcoin’s network difficulty has dropped two times prior to the upcoming 27% slide expected on Saturday.

November 2020 and October 2011 Precede Bitcoin’s Largest Difficulty Slide in History

The largest difficulty drop so far in BTC’s lifetime, took place on October 30, 2011, the day before Halloween.

At that time, the difficulty slid 18.03 %, at BTC block height 151,200 when the global hashrate was a meager 8.61 terahash per second (TH/s). For some perspective, today a single next-generation bitcoin miner crafted by Microbt or Bitmain commands hashpower of around 100 TH/s.

Interestingly, BTC did not see a large drop like the one in 2011 until block height 655,200 recorded on November 3, 2020. At that time last year, the mining difficulty slid 16.05% and the hashrate was around 120.12 EH/s.

Usually, BTC’s difficulty goes up more so than the number of times it has slid down during the course of its lifetime. At Bitcoin block height 685,440, BTC’s mining difficulty slid 15.97% on May 29 when the hashrate was roughly 150 EH/s.

Block Times Expected to Smooth, Hashrate Expected to Increase

At today’s 86.5 EH/s hashrate and the current 19.93 trillion difficulty, block times have been longer than ten minutes on average. After the Bitcoin difficulty change on Saturday, the time between blocks should smooth back over to closer to ten minutes on average.

Since June 29, BTC’s hashrate has increased a great deal as 30-day hashrate statistics show the network’s hashpower was only 66 EH/s that day. Saturday’s difficulty change will not only be a milestone but will also make it much easier for miners to continue ramping up resources.

What do you think about the mining difficulty change set to happen on Saturday? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.