A Miner Step Forward – Bitcoin Magazine: Bitcoin News, Articles, Charts, and Guides

Last Week In Bitcoin is a series discussing the events of the previous week that occurred in the Bitcoin industry, covering all the important news and analysis.

Summary

As the fallout of China’s crypto crackdown continues, the effects of over half of the world’s bitcoin miners going offline have been felt. Being the product of absolute genius, bitcoin’s mining algorithm adjusted, decreasing the difficulty to mine bitcoin by nearly 28% — the highest drop ever — making it easier and more profitable for the miners who remain to earn from their operations.

Highlights

Chart of the Week

Bitcoin mining. It’s all the rage nowadays, and for good reason. No mining means no bitcoin, it really is as simple as that. The China FUD, crackdown and subsequent drop in the bitcoin hashrate has forced the bitcoin mining algorithm to adjust the mining difficulty, prompting the largest bitcoin mining difficulty drop in the 12 years of bitcoin’s existence. In a nutshell, every 2016 blocks — once every two weeks, roughly — bitcoin’s mining algorithm adjusts itself to ensure that a block is mined every 10 minutes or so. Before the most recent adjustment, blocks took between 14 and 19 minutes to mine, meaning an overall slower network, but more importantly less revenue and profit for miners.

Source