Ethereum 'Difficulty Bomb' Delayed: What You Need To Know

Core developers working on The Merge have opted to delay the deployment of the “difficulty bomb” on the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) blockchain.

What Happened: In a series of updates on June 10, Ethereum developer Tim Beiko said on Twitter the development team had agreed to delay the bomb. 

For context, the difficulty bomb is a code adjustment to the Ethereum blockchain that will create a sudden increase in mining difficulty that will make it much harder and time-consuming for miners to mine ETH and earn a reward.

The difficulty bomb is meant to disincentivize Ethereum miners from producing Proof-of-Work (PoW) blocks, as the network plans to exist solely as a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chain.

See Also: PROOF OF STAKE VS PROOF OF WORK

Once the difficulty adjustment comes into effect, it will become far less profitable to mine Ethereum.

Last year, some cryptocurrency miners like Hut 8 Mining (NASDAQ:HUTWF) and HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd (NASDAQ:HIVE) were seen making large-scale purchases of ETH mining infrastructure despite being aware of an impending transition to Proof-of-Stake that would make their efforts redundant.

With Beiko confirming that the Ethereum developers have put off deploying the difficulty bomb, Proof-of-Work ETH miners will not have to worry about decreased profitability for the next two months at least.

ETH Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, ETH was trading at $1,246, down 15% over the last 24 hours