Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Has Rarely Been This Static in a Decade

“The bitcoin network adjusted its difficulty level at 01:18 UTC on July 1 to 15.7842 trillion – down a mere 0.0033% from the previous level of 15.7847 trillion set June 17. The percentage change is small enough that it is rounded up to a zero, data from BTC.com shows.

“Bitcoin mining difficulty measures how hard it is to compete for block rewards on the network. The measure is designed to adjust every 2,016 blocks, roughly every two weeks, based on the total computing power that’s participating in the mining game.

“The negligible adjustment on Wednesday means the total average computing power connected to Bitcoin over the past 14 days has barely changed, either due to the lack of new mining devices plugging in or any newly added computing power being offset by those that are squeezed out after Bitcoin’s halving.

“Historically, difficulty remaining steady at the initial level of 1 for a year after the genesis block was mined, before starting to rise in early 2010. The last time the measure posted a 0% change was in March 2010.

“Since then, there have been only eight instances where the difficulty change, both negative and positive, was below 0.1%, with today’s being the smallest adjustment.

“All told, while the total mining power on the Bitcoin network has largely recovered from the deep drop following the network’s halving event in May, it’s still to surpass an all-time high was recorded in early March…”