• Bitcoin’s mining difficulty printed a record increase on Jan. 15, 2023, rising 10.26% to 37.73 trillion at block height 772,128, making it the highest difficulty rating on the Bitcoin blockchain.
• The difficulty increase surpasses all but one of the difficulty increases from last year, with the largest difficulty increase taking place on Oct. 10, 2022, at block height 758,016, when it rose by 13.55%.
• Bitcoin’s price has climbed 22.7% higher in the last seven days, which is beneficial to Bitcoin miners, however the 10.26% difficulty increase will make profits a lot tighter.

On Jan. 15, 2023, the Bitcoin network experienced a difficulty retarget at 4:11 p.m. Eastern time, at block height 772,128, resulting in an increase of 10.26%. This brought the network’s difficulty to an all-time high of 37.73 trillion, making it exceptionally difficult to find a valid Bitcoin block and add it to the blockchain. This difficulty rating surpassed the previous record of 36.76 trillion, which was set on Nov. 6, 2022. The difficulty increase also outpaced all but one increase from all of 2022, with the largest difficulty increase taking place on Oct. 10, 2022, at block height 758,016, when it rose by 13.55%.

At 8:15 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, approximately 286.36 exahash per second (EH/s) of hashrate was dedicated to the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. This is a significant increase from the beginning of the year when the network’s hash rate reached an all-time high of 361.20 exahash per second (EH/s) on Jan. 6, 2023, at block height 770,709.

The increase in difficulty comes as the price of Bitcoin has seen a surge in the past week, climbing 22.7% higher. This is beneficial to miners, however the 10.26% difficulty increase will make profits a lot tighter. Despite this, miners are still continuing to dedicate their hashrate to the network, showing that the mining industry is still very much alive, and the Bitcoin network remains secure.