Bitcoin (BTC) Difficulty Increase Projected at 4.8% Ahead of Next Adjustment

Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty was projected to rise 4.8% at the next adjustment as of 8:21 a.m. ET (12:21 UTC) Sunday, Oct. 25, with 693 blocks left in the current cycle.

Difficulty stood at 140.58 trillion, and Bitcoin’s estimated one-week average hashrate was 1.08 zettahashes per second. Earlier projections for the same upcoming adjustment included a 2.05% estimate on Oct. 17 and a separate 6.44% projection for a retarget expected around Oct. 29. The current estimate falls between those readings and can shift as blocks are produced. The Oct. 17 estimate and the earlier projection for the Oct. 29 retarget covered the same adjustment.

Bitcoin adjusts mining difficulty after each 2,016-block cycle, based on how long the cycle took to complete. The network aims for an average block time of 10 minutes. A higher difficulty means miners must do more computational work to find a block; the adjustment itself does not set a price target for Bitcoin.