– Bitcoin’s network difficulty increased by 4.68%, setting a new all-time high of 39.35 trillion.
– The increase occurred at block height 774,144, at 6:10 a.m. (UTC) on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023.
– The hashrate of 279.7 exahash per second (EH/s) is estimated to be 283.55 EH/s dedicated to the Bitcoin blockchain, with Foundry USA as the top mining pool with 101.47 EH/s.

On Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023, the Bitcoin blockchain recorded yet another difficulty increase, this time to an all-time high of 39.35 trillion. This increase of 4.68% from the previous record of 37.59 trillion occurred at block height 774,144, at 6:10 a.m. (UTC). With this increase, mining blocks have become more difficult, following a 4.68% jump after the 10.26% increase that occurred on Jan. 15, 2023.

Statistics from macromicro.me on Jan. 28, 2023, estimate the cost of BTC production at $21,176 per unit. On Jan. 29, the spot price was $23,584. This means that with spot prices higher than the cost of production, bitcoin (BTC) miners have been able to recoup some losses from the end of 2022.

The hashrate of 279.7 exahash per second (EH/s) is estimated to be 283.55 EH/s dedicated to the Bitcoin blockchain, with Foundry USA as the top mining pool with 101.47 EH/s, equating to 34.89% of the network’s hashpower. Antpool follows Foundry with 57.54 EH/s, or 19.79% of the total network hashrate. F2pool, Binance Pool, Viabtc, Btc.com, and Braiins Pool follow Foundry and Antpool, respectively.

With the increase in difficulty, block intervals, or the time between each BTC block, have been about 9:02 to 9:38 minutes. This is slower than the recent 8:54 to 9:31 minutes recorded two days ago, but still faster than the 10-minute average. As the difficulty continues to increase and the hashrate continues to grow, it is likely that the Bitcoin blockchain will soon see another all-time high in difficulty and hashrate.