Miners' machines seem to be on and hard at work as mining Bitcoin (BTC) is about to get more difficult - reaching a brand new all-time high, thus increasing operational costs to mine the coin. Two industry players weighed in on what might come next.
Bitcoin mining difficulty, which is the measure of how hard it is to compete for mining rewards, is about to reach two milestones: an all-time high, and stepping into the never-before-seen 17 T territory.
The mining difficulty, if the current estimations by mining pool [BTC.com](http://BTC.com) come true, will rise 8.92% in little less than three days - completely skipping over the 16 T range this time, and climbing to 17.19 T.
This follows an unchanged difficulty level during the previous adjustment, and the highest jump in two years recorded in mid-June, which itself was preceded by the eight highest drop.
The last time the difficulty was above 16 T was in early May, before the third Bitcoin halving. But the previous all-time high happened even before that, in early March this year, with 16.55 T.
The price of bitcoin has been keeping steady in the lower USD 9,000 level, not making any major swings lately. At the time of writing (13:26 UTC), the coin is changing hands at USD 9,228, having dropped just above 2% in 24 hours and appreciated less than 1% in a week. The price is down by 6% in a month and 21% in a year.
The mining difficulty of Bitcoin is adjusted every two weeks (every 2016 blocks, to be precise) to maintain the normal 10-minute block time. Since June 30, it was below 10 minutes and dropped below 9 minutes yesterday.