This year, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) ranged from a minimum of just over $ 3,000 to a maximum of about $ 13,000. At the same time, the complexity of BTC mining , which measures the complexity of the calculations needed to mine new coins and create new network blocks, has been growing unprecedented.
Bitcoin mining difficulty is adjusted approximately every two weeks to take into account the hashrate of new miners on the network. Despite the fact that the general trend has been upward almost since the creation of the network, short but significant failures happen. For example, in December 2018, mining complexity decreased three times in a row, the total drop was almost 30%.
In this calendar year, the difficulty of mining BTC decreased five times, but no more than 1.18%. This is unprecedented. In no previous year, the most serious drop was so low. In the entire history, at least one drop was more than 5%.
Of course, 2019 has not yet ended, but it is worth noting that at that time last year, the difficulty of mining BTC decreased only once (3.45%, which is more significant than any decrease in 2019).
If this trend continues, it will confirm that the BTC miner community is less sensitive to currency price fluctuations than ever before.
To understand why, it is worth considering the basics of the complexity of cryptocurrency mining . The Bitcoin network produces 2016 new blocks every two weeks. Maintaining this speed is important for network operation. Blocks are generated by miner computing systems that solve mathematical problems. In this case, it is appropriate to compare the miners with the players in the lottery, and the difficulty of mining is with a very low chance of each individual player to win. Each time someone “wins” the lottery, a block is created.
Since bitcoin networks need blocks that are generated at a predictable speed, the complexity of this “lottery” should vary depending on the number of “players” (miners). For example, if many miners leave the network, the mining complexity should be reduced, or the rest will not have enough power needed to generate new blocks at the speed required to maintain the network.
In fact, the Bitcoin mining system is more complicated than described above, however, according to its basic principle, the upward movement of Bitcoin this year is a bullish sign. Investors come and go, the price fluctuates up and down, but interest in Bitcoin mining is clearly growing, and this year it has become more stable than ever before.
Publication date 10/14/2019
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