Mining difficultly going down but I do have a question

[Somegory]

This might not even count as a good question but I would rather know than not knowing.

I have been getting pop up messages on my smartphone that Bitcoin mining difficultly is decreasing, last week it decreased about 1% and today it's 2%, I want to know if this somehow can help solo miners in a bear market.

I am sure that some miners always go out of business in a bear market, some ASICS becomes less profitable, does this mean that block will be easier to solve too? 😕 No crime in knowing, if it is a ridiculous question please forgive me.

[FP91G]

This might not even count as a good question but I would rather know than not knowing.

I have been getting pop up messages on my smartphone that Bitcoin mining difficultly is decreasing, last week it decreased about 1% and today it's 2%, I want to know if this somehow can help solo miners in a bear market.

I am sure that some miners always go out of business in a bear market, some ASICS becomes less profitable, does this mean that block will be easier to solve too? 😕 No crime in knowing, if it is a ridiculous question please forgive me.

I recently published these statistics. Solo mining is a lottery; the difficulty is constantly changing. For solo miner, this statistic is important: Odds of Finding a Block:

https://solostats.ckpool.org/users/bc1pgmjf3naje4543gzge0a2tk5kxnpqu0gdckt54kp34jpv8wvasskqltysfy
I haven't paid attention to daily or weekly hashrate fluctuations for a long time. Looking at the year-over-year results, the hashrate is constantly growing. On January 1, 2025, the hashrate was approximately 0.84 ZH/s, and now it's 1.100 ZH/s.

[_act_]

I have been getting pop up messages on my smartphone that Bitcoin mining difficultly is decreasing, last week it decreased about 1% and today it's 2%, I want to know if this somehow can help solo miners in a bear market.

Solo miners continue to mine a block, but they calculate the mining hash rate in a way they know they might be lucky and some are lucky. Even when the hash rate was higher than this, single miners continue to mine a block.

I am sure that some miners always go out of business in a bear market, some ASICS becomes less profitable, does this mean that block will be easier to solve too? 😕 No crime in knowing, if it is a ridiculous question please forgive me.

Yes, block will be easier to solve but with bitcoin mining hash rate is still very high and nothing like that for now.

[mindrust]

I think it has something to do with the AI/LLM craze.

Mining difficulty is going down because big investors are started to invest in llm datacenters instead of btc miner farm.

Both are valid ways of making money in the end but btc farms didn’t have competition till now.

Now they do.

One can invest in a big llm datacenter and have his own llm app running on those free llm models. I don’t know the details in full but I am sure something is eating the btc mining share / hash rate out there and it is those llm investors.

[Ruttoshi]

The possibility of a solo miner to mine a block is slim and he needs sophisticated lastest mining equipment with high hash rate. I don't think that those second hand mining equipment that would be sold in the bear market by miners will be efficient enough to mine a block compared to a mining farm even if the mining difficulty is low. The cost of electricity is also very expensive only if you're in a region with cheap electricity.

I will rather use whatever money I plan to set up a solo mining farm to buy bitcoin and hodli to avoid unexpected losses. However, a few solo miners are lucky enough to solve the puzzle.

[philipma1957]

This might not even count as a good question but I would rather know than not knowing.

I have been getting pop up messages on my smartphone that Bitcoin mining difficultly is decreasing, last week it decreased about 1% and today it's 2%, I want to know if this somehow can help solo miners in a bear market.

I am sure that some miners always go out of business in a bear market, some ASICS becomes less profitable, does this mean that block will be easier to solve too? 😕 No crime in knowing, if it is a ridiculous question please forgive me.

it is a good question

 the diff was as high as 155t

it is now 149T

that is easier to hit a block for a solo miner

but it is still really really really hard for a 10th miner to hit one.

a 10th miner earns about 38 cents a day a block is about 285,000 dollars

so 285000/.38=750,000  so the chance is 1 block per 750,000 days or

1 block per 2054.8 years
1 block per 20.54 centuries


it was worse. maybe

1 block per 780,000 days
1 block per 2137 years
1 block per 21.37 centuries


so yeah we improved a bit.

these are ballpark numbers but close enough


I have a down clocked miner
spent 100 to get it and I burn 12x24=288 watts a day.

I will run it till it breaks and it is now easier to hit a block than last jump