Bitcoin Miners Face Pressure From Bear Market and Rising Difficulty

Bitcoin miners are getting squeezed by soaring mining difficulty and minimal upward movement in the price of Bitcoin.

As of Oct. 10, 2022, Bitcoin mining difficulty ros e 13.55% since May 13, 2021, to hit 35.61T, accompanied by only a 2.6% increase in the price of BTC in the last 14 days.

Difficulty is adjusted roughly every two weeks to maintain the 10-minute window in which BTC transaction blocks are solved.

A difficulty increase is partially caused by the rise in computing power, or hashrate, on the Bitcoin network. According to crypto reporter Colin Wu, the increase in hashrate could result from previous Ethereum miners migrating to the Bitcoin network after the recent Ethereum Merge. The Merge saw Ethereum become a proof-of-stake blockchain that relies on validators rather than miners to validate transactions.

One explanation is that due to Ethereum’s withdrawal from POW, relatively cheap electricity was used for BTC mining, resulting in more mining machines being used.
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 10, 2022

Mining is the process of solving a cryptographic problem to verify transactions on the Bitcoin network. This objective is usually achieved by using special-purpose mi