BTC mining difficulty surges 15%, largest jump in 5 years

Bitcoin's mining difficulty has surged by 15%, marking its largest increase since 2021, CoinDesk reported. The media outlet explained that the spike follows a recovery in the network's hashrate, which had previously plummeted after a winter storm in the U.S. forced major mining operations to scale back. That event had caused the mining difficulty to drop by 12%. Despite the hashrate's rebound, profitability remains under severe pressure, as the hash price—the estimated daily earnings per unit of hash power—is stuck at a multi-year low of $23.9.