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There are lots of videos and articles on what Bitcoin difficulty is, and lots of charts on how it has changed over the past couple of years.
But this isn't really helpful if you're thinking about investing in cloud mining, or maybe even buying your own mining rig. We focus on key factors that may affect Bitcoin's difficulty in this guide. If you're looking for how profitable ASIC miners are in , see this guide. So let's start by looking at how Bitcoin difficulty has changed every 4 months for the past 3 years:.
Sep - As of 19th December , many difficulty charts, including the one above, seem to be displaying outdated data. We've posted a video explaining the cause of this here. Looking at the Blockchain chart above for the past 2 years, it definitely looks exponential; e. But the figures for the past 3 years don't do that, they vary significantly.
In it took around 11 months for the difficulty to double, in early around 6 months, in late around 8 months and then in between months. Rather than doubling at a consistent interval, it seems to vary based on factors like available hardware and public interest.
What we're suggesting is that the rate Bitcoin difficulty is increasing is not fixed, and can be anticipated. Right now, in December , Bitcoin is very popular, with thousands of new investors and miners every day - so significant difficulty increases are to be expected.
Many new people are interested in bitcoin mining, allowing hardware manufacturers to sell miners in larger quantities, causing more total hashpower to be available - driving Bitcoin difficulty up. The key relationship here is that the amount of new hardware becoming available is strongly linked to the demand for it.
A risk is that if the people making these miners produce too many, the difficulty will rise so fast that Bitcoin mining profitability goes down massively.
This occurred for Dash when the Antminer D3 came out. There are also scenarios that can cause Bitcoin's difficulty to decrease. August is a good example of this, where a lot of miners moved their hashpower to mine Bitcoin Cash as it was more profitable at the time. This decreased hashpower mining Bitcoin, causing Bitcoin's difficulty to decrease for 2 weeks.
If you stay up-to-date with these types of scenarios and mine the more profitable coins Bitcoin Cash in this scenario , you can get extra coins for 2 weeks and sell them immediately for a great return on investment or just HODL them!
Another argument suggesting Bitcoin mining will remain profitable long-term is to look at it from the perspective of large mining operations. If you were a miner running a large setup, and Bitcoin mining was to no longer be profitable, then you'd likely start mining something else that was. If there were no profitable coins for a long period of time, you'd likely have very high operating costs and be forced to shut down your operation eventually.
For a smaller miner running just a few Antminers or some cloud mining, this would be less of an issue. So in theory as long as Bitcoin stays popular and its price continues to increase, if you can get cheap electricity Bitcoin mining should always stay profitable. This last argument in particular is very speculative, so be aware that for a worst-case scenario if Bitcoin's price was to fall for a long-period of time, even if you had cheap electricity, there's a risk that mining it would no longer be profitable.
In June , the reward for Bitcoin mining will half. This could cause big issues in the long-term as it essentially makes it half as profitable overnight. So if miners are only making a small profit prior to this, they'll then be running at a loss just after it. At this point open-ended contracts on sites like Genesis Mining will likely no longer be profitable although they might not even last that long.
This site cannot substitute for professional investment or financial advice, or independent factual verification. This guide is provided for general informational purposes only. The group of individuals writing these guides are cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors, not financial advisors. Trading or mining any form of cryptocurrency is very high risk, so never invest money you can't afford to lose - you should be prepared to sustain a total loss of all invested money.
This website is monetised through affiliate links. Where used, we will disclose this and make no attempt to hide it. We don't endorse any affiliate services we use - and will not be liable for any damage, expense or other loss you may suffer from using any of these. Don't rush into anything, do your own research. As we write new content, we will update this disclaimer to encompass it. We first discovered Bitcoin in late , and wanted to get everyone around us involved.
But no one seemed to know what it was! We made this website to try and fix this, to get everyone up-to-speed! Click here for more information on these. All information on this website is for general informational purposes only, it is not intended to provide legal or financial advice.
Expected Bitcoin Difficulty in Sep 19th, Updated Jan 26th, Mining There are lots of videos and articles on what Bitcoin difficulty is, and lots of charts on how it has changed over the past couple of years. This guide has our thoughts on what will affect Bitcoin difficulty over So let's start by looking at how Bitcoin difficulty has changed every 4 months for the past 3 years: Rate of Bitcoin difficulty increase Looking at the Blockchain chart above for the past 2 years, it definitely looks exponential; e.
May 5th, What is the Antminer Z9 Mini? Written by the Anything Crypto team We first discovered Bitcoin in late , and wanted to get everyone around us involved. Never invest money you can't afford to lose.