Bitcoin mining difficulty rises 5.5% on Friday

On Friday, October 16, the Bitcoin network will make itself more expensive. At around 14:00 UTC the blockchain reaches height 971,712, and the next mining difficulty adjustment takes effect. On Tuesday afternoon's reading, it comes out at 5.49 percent to the upside. That is the third-largest increase of this year, and it hits an industry whose product trades 33.8 percent below its record of $126,080.

This is not a technical footnote for investors. Difficulty determines how much computation a new Bitcoin costs, and with it the floor below which a miner would rather sell its coins than hold them. This article works through how much more expensive production becomes on Friday, which levels the price has behind it, and what you can check before the date.

132.72 trillion: what mining difficulty is showing right now

Mining difficulty is a number the Bitcoin network resets every 2,016 blocks. It governs how hard it is to find a valid block, and so keeps the average block time at ten minutes. When computing power on the network rises, difficulty follows it up. When computing power falls, difficulty falls.

It currently stands at 132.72 trillion. The last adjustment on October 3 was effectively a non-event at minus 0.03 percent. Since then, miners have brought too much power to the network: blocks are arriving every 9.49 minutes on average instead of every ten, roughly half a minute too fast. That half minute is exactly what the protocol takes back on Friday.