Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Near All-Time-High as Price Steadies Over $18,000

Bitcoin hit a two-year high of over $19,000 and declined below $17,000 for several times in a matter of one week as mining difficulty is on the rise. As per on-chain analytics provider Glassnode, Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty rose by 8.9% today, taking the measure within 5% of its peak recorded last month.

An increase in mining difficulty highlighted the beginning of bullish rallies in 2013 and 2016, though time will show whether the numero uno crypto’s latest sure to within 3% of its historical high is bullish in the long-term.

The price of Bitcoin declined 11% a week before as several whales shifted a portion of their possession to exchanges.

An increase in mining difficulty implies a rise in fees for users and the time necessary to create a block along with a growing number of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool of Bitcoin. As per the data provided by Earn.com, the most competitive Bitcoin transaction charge is 14,272 satoshis (~$2.60).

The Ethereum (ETH) blockchain has also witnessed record highs in recent times. Data provided by Glassnode also indicated that mining difficulty for the network stood at a two-year high after the token’s price declined to $513, from $600 on November 23.

The hash rate of the Bitcoin network, a measure reflecting the level of computing power dedicated to authentication of Bitcoin transactions, plummeted soon after the hash rate and mining complexity hit an all-time-high in October.

Data from Blockchain.com indicates the metric declined over 27% between October 17 and November 2, from 146.50 EH/s to 106.60 EH/s. As per BTC.com, Bitcoin’s hash rate is currently 130.15 EH/s.

At the time of writing this article, the price of Bitcoin was trading at $18,856.65, reflecting a gain of 4.6% in the last 24 hours.