Last Thursday saw the biggest drop in bitcoin mining difficulty since China imposed a ban on cryptocurrency mining in May last year. Difficulty dropped by 5%, while in May last year the drop was even more – 16%.
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Bitcoin mining difficulty is automatically adjusted every two weeks. The more computing power is connected to the network, the higher the complexity, and vice versa, the disconnection of computing power leads to a drop in complexity. Last Thursday, this indicator was adjusted.
The record drop is partly due to the fact that Texas miners have been turning off their equipment over the past two weeks in response to appeal Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), asking them to reduce their power consumption due to heat waves in the state.
Since the vast majority of U.S. cryptocurrency mining operations take place in the southern states, the heat wave has not only hit Texas miners. “Difficulty has eased as US miners have been shutting down their machines for significant periods of time over the past two weeks as electricity prices skyrocket due to extreme heat,” noted Jason Mellerud, senior researcher at Arcane Research.
Despite the fact that the cryptocurrency market has recently experienced a big drop, mining companies continue to deploy tens of thousands of mining rigs throughout the United States. For example, Marathon Digital Holdings plans to install regarding 66,000 mining systems with a total capacity of 90 MW in Texas and a mining farm with a capacity of 110 MW in North Dakota. Another 68,000 mining rigs are waiting to be connected to the network in West Texas. In turn, Riot Blockchain has launched a 750 MW facility in Texas and is building another 1 GW mining farm.
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