Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty is anticipated to extend throughout the next difficulty adjustment scheduled for December 11 as hash price, a critical metric that measures miners' expected profitability per unit of computing power, is at record lows.
According to CoinWarz, the subsequent Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment is anticipated to occur at around 00:09:34 UTC at block 927.360, barely increasing the problem from 149.30 trillion to 149.80 trillion.
The latest adjustment, which occurred on Thursday, reduced the problem from 152.2 trillion to 149.3 trillion, leading to a mean block time of about 9.97 minutes on the time of writing, barely below the 10-minute goal.
Bitcoin mining difficulty from 2014 to 2025. Source: CoinWarz
Despite the recent decline in mining difficulty, the hash price is around 38.3 petahashes per second (PH/s) per day, in keeping with the Hashrate Index, above the record low of under 35 PH/s reached on November twenty first.
For comparison, a hash price of $40 PH/s is a break-even level for miners and the purpose at which they need to think about shutting down their machines or continuing operations.
The mining industry continues to face growing challenges, including regulatory bans or restrictions, rising energy costs and geopolitical tensions between the United States and China that might disrupt supply chains of critical equipment.
The US is investigating the most important maker of crypto mining hardware, sparking fears of shortages
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is investigating China-based mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain to find out whether its machines could be accessed remotely or used for espionage purposes.
In 2024, US Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the crucial vocal critics of crypto, suggested that ASICs may very well be used for spying on US military bases and sensitive national defense facilities.
Bitmain is the leading manufacturer of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) used for mining Proof-of-Work (PoW) cryptocurrencies. According to the University of Cambridge, the corporate has an 80% market share.
Restrictions, tariffs or sanctions imposed on the corporate by U.S. officials could trigger supply chain problems for the mining industry, which relies heavily on Bitmain.
