Bitcoin network difficulty reaches all-time high as miners pursue 2M BTC

Just when the Bitcoin (BTC) miners helped release the 19th millionth BTC in circulation on Friday, the BTC network’s mining difficulty reciprocated by reaching an all-time high of 28.587 trillion. 

Bitcoin’s network difficulty correlates to the computational power required to mine BTC blocks, which currently demands an estimated hash rate of 201.84 exahash per second (EH/s), according to data from Blockchain.com.

Supporting the spike in the network difficulty, Bitcoin’s hash rate maintained a stronghold throughout the year while breaking into an all-time high of 248.11 EH/s on Feb. 13.

A higher hash rate ensures resilience against double-spending attacks, which is the process of reversing BTC transactions over the blockchain by contributing to at least 51% of the Bitcoin hash rate. 

Back on March 4, roughly a month before reaching an all-time high, the BTC network difficulty experienced a slight decline from 27.96 trillion to 27.55 trillion, which eventually fell to 27.45 trillion until Wednesday. Prior to that, the resilient Bitcoin network grew consistently since July 2021.

With just 2 million BTC left to mine as rewards and an influx of Bitcoin miners from across the world, the BTC network is expected to increasingly grow stronger as it supports the thriving community. it is estimated that the remaining 2 million BTC (out of the total supply of 21 million) will be eventually mined roughly by the year 2140 owing to factors including halving. 

Related: Terra smash-buys $139M Bitcoin, wallet reaches 31,000 BTC

On Wednesday, a Terra wallet belonging to Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) amassed $139 million in BTC, bringing its total coffers up to 31,000 BTC, or $1.47 billion.

Just getting started pic.twitter.com/dJrkf6YfrR

— TerraLunaaaa (@TerraLunaaaa) March 30, 2022

As Cointelegraph reported, the wallet began amassing colossal amounts of BTC on Jan. 2021 and has not sold a single satoshi to date.