According to the latest data collected from the platform BTC.comBitcoin mining difficulty has increased by 13.55% since the last modification about two weeks ago.

The current difficulty adjustment now requires 35.6 trillion hashes to generate one bitcoin, a whopping 13.55% increase over previous estimates.

According to the data, the rise is the largest increase in the difficulty of Bitcoin mining since May 2021.

BTC.com data shows that the network hash rate now stands at 257 million TH/s, a massive increase from 140 million TH/s at this time last year.

Despite the pressure from the lower prices we have seen this year, the adjustment difficulty continues to rise steadily while competition between the two miners increases.

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The higher difficulty means that it takes more computing power to mine the same number of blocks and make the network secure.

The increased mining difficulty also means that miners must increase computing power in order to mine new blocks.

Miners compete against each other for limited block rewards.

With the increase in the number of participants and the increase in computing power, the alleged hash power of the entire network increases exponentially, which is good for the price of Bitcoin in the long run.

The mining difficulty in the Bitcoin network is automatically adjusted once every two weeks i.e. after 2016 blocks in the network have been mined.

The next difficulty adjustment will be on October 24th.

The increased difficulty points to more challenges facing bitcoin miners who are already feeling the heat from weak bitcoin prices and rising energy costs.

The bear market has been tough for miners, who have seen profit margins shrink as bitcoin prices collapse by more than 50% this year while capital has dried up and energy prices have soared.

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Last month, one of the largest bitcoin mining data centers, Compute North, filed for bankruptcy, citing a bear market, problems with its largest lender, and supply problems.

On Friday last week, Bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain raised $27 million after agreeing to issue 87 million shares to a single investor in bids to ease liquidity pressures.

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