Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Increases For First Time Since May

What happened: New data shows the difficulty of Bitcoin BTC/USD mining is on the upswing. According to data from BTC.com the level of difficulty to mine the cryptocurrency increased by 6% on Saturday. It’s the first increase in difficulty for Bitcoin miners since the digital currency began to crash in May, according to a report from Decrypt.

Why it’s important: The rate of difficulty has plunged since peaking at a record high in mid-May. The level continued to decrease in June and July after a crackdown on miners in China, causing them to leave the country or sell their mining machines. Chinese miners were responsible for 65% of the Bitcoin network’s hash rate at the time.

The largest drop in mining difficulty occurred on July 3 of this year, when the rate fell by 28%. Followed by another drop of 4.81% on July 18. 

What’s next: The increasing rate of difficulty reported today indicates more mining machines are back online. The level of difficulty increases as more minors try to earn Bitcoin, which requires computer power to validate transactions on the network. BTC is priced at over $41800 at the time of publication, after marking a low of $28600 on June 22.