2026 Difficulty Thread

[joker_josue]

the difficulty pattern since Nov last year is a low dip in general
we will see what it does in two weeks

Well, this usually happens whenever there are price drops.
Some are starting to shut down the least productive machines, others are reducing their operations or taking the opportunity to refurbish equipment.

Or am I mistaken in this analysis?

[philipma1957]

the difficulty pattern since Nov last year is a low dip in general
we will see what it does in two weeks

Well, this usually happens whenever there are price drops.
Some are starting to shut down the least productive machines, others are reducing their operations or taking the opportunity to refurbish equipment.

Or am I mistaken in this analysis?

What we don't know is how fast can we get back to 155t  peak. SINCE we don't know how much power is being leased to ai.

Ie: we spike to 130k or 140k price fast can the miners get gear on line fast or are they short power due to it now running ai.
 ____________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------
We are sliding along despite a large drop in price 82k to 76k

https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator

Latest Block:   949956  (a few seconds ago)

Current Pace:   98.6273%  (421 / 426.86 expected, 5.86 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                            
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 134886211155748 and 135958269028845
Next Difficulty Change:   between -1.2597% and -0.4749%
Previous Retarget:   last Friday at 11:56 AM  (+3.1215%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   May 29, 2026 at 1:41 PM  (in 11d 2h 36m 21s)
Next Retarget (latest):   May 29, 2026 at 4:37 PM  (in 11d 5h 31m 59s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 1h 44m 57s and 14d 4h 40m 34s

[alh]

My simplistic view is that AI is the sexy new "tech thing" and has huge amounts of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) associated with it. The impact on silicon based gear (RAM, GPU, etc) will spur an equally insane amount of infrastructure build and ultimately electricity use.

Bitcoin had that same kind of FOMO, but has been replaced (for now).

[Nexus9090]

My simplistic view is that AI is the sexy new "tech thing" and has huge amounts of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) associated with it. The impact on silicon based gear (RAM, GPU, etc) will spur an equally insane amount of infrastructure build and ultimately electricity use.

Bitcoin had that same kind of FOMO, but has been replaced (for now).

With BTC the FOMO was real and I did miss out. I wish i'd paid more attention to it in the early days.

With AI, I just can't wait for the bubble to burst and I'll be grabbing the popcorn when it does. I think its over-hyped overplayed and generally a travesty in the making.

Sure it can do some impressive things in terms of image, video and audio editing and acts well in some instances as a search assistant but otherwise its not something I will ever want to use I'd prefer not to have it interfering with my daily routines and guzzling my personal data without consent to be honest.

[philipma1957]

My simplistic view is that AI is the sexy new "tech thing" and has huge amounts of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) associated with it. The impact on silicon based gear (RAM, GPU, etc) will spur an equally insane amount of infrastructure build and ultimately electricity use.

Bitcoin had that same kind of FOMO, but has been replaced (for now).

With BTC the FOMO was real and I did miss out. I wish i'd paid more attention to it in the early days.

With AI, I just can't wait for the bubble to burst and I'll be grabbing the popcorn when it does. I think its over-hyped overplayed and generally a travesty in the making.

Sure it can do some impressive things in terms of image, video and audio editing and acts well in some instances as a search assistant but otherwise its not something I will ever want to use I'd prefer not to have it interfering with my daily routines and guzzling my personal data without consent to be honest.

AI seems to be a train wreck we are watching and will see it happen soon.

[Nexus9090]

My simplistic view is that AI is the sexy new "tech thing" and has huge amounts of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) associated with it. The impact on silicon based gear (RAM, GPU, etc) will spur an equally insane amount of infrastructure build and ultimately electricity use.

Bitcoin had that same kind of FOMO, but has been replaced (for now).

With BTC the FOMO was real and I did miss out. I wish i'd paid more attention to it in the early days.

With AI, I just can't wait for the bubble to burst and I'll be grabbing the popcorn when it does. I think its over-hyped overplayed and generally a travesty in the making.

Sure it can do some impressive things in terms of image, video and audio editing and acts well in some instances as a search assistant but otherwise its not something I will ever want to use I'd prefer not to have it interfering with my daily routines and guzzling my personal data without consent to be honest.

AI seems to be a train wreck we are watching and will see it happen soon.

Indeed it is, I can't see this lasting much past the end of 2029 by which time the overall "life improvements" it offers and features will start to become clear.

I think everyone is going to be sorely disappointed. It will not solve all of humanities issues, it'll likely compound a lot as governments try to use it to "make life better" only to find out that its a total disaster.

As for the implications on the jobs market, as employers switch to AI to solve all their administrative ills the jobs market will collapse under its own stupidity along with the idiot companies trying to use it to replace people.

[philipma1957]

https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator

Latest Block:   950403  (12 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   98.0051%  (868 / 885.67 expected, 17.67 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                            
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 133955788716701 and 134804165548089
Next Difficulty Change:   between -1.9408% and -1.3198%
Previous Retarget:   last Friday at 11:56 AM  (+3.1215%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   May 29, 2026 at 4:33 PM  (in 8d 1h 0m 36s)
Next Retarget (latest):   May 29, 2026 at 6:46 PM  (in 8d 3h 13m 40s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 4h 37m 17s and 14d 6h 50m 21s


a bit down which does reflect the 77.7k price

Latest Block:   950589  (4 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   99.6116%  (1054 / 1058.11 expected, 4.11 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                           
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                           
Next Difficulty:   between 136139342658715 and 136245564012370
Next Difficulty Change:   between -0.3424% and -0.2646%
Previous Retarget:   May 15, 2026 at 11:56 AM  (+3.1215%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   May 29, 2026 at 12:57 PM  (in 6d 16h 39m 36s)
Next Retarget (latest):   May 29, 2026 at 1:15 PM  (in 6d 16h 57m 30s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 1h 0m 42s and 14d 1h 18m 36s


Close to even

[FP91G]

If the Bitcoin price doesn't rise after the 2028 halving, mining difficulty will likely decline.
New equipment is very expensive and doesn't pay for itself quickly. Most new equipment will be water-cooled, which will require many miners to invest in additional cooling systems and abandon air-cooled ASICs.

[Nexus9090]

If the Bitcoin price doesn't rise after the 2028 halving, mining difficulty will likely decline.
New equipment is very expensive and doesn't pay for itself quickly. Most new equipment will be water-cooled, which will require many miners to invest in additional cooling systems and abandon air-cooled ASICs.

I agree, the risk to reward ratio is half what it was and lets face it new higher performance ASIC's just don't appear to be on the road-map presently.

For BitMain, I think they've reached the limit of what they can achieve with their ASIC with process size shrinks and higher core counts.

The newer silicon process nodes are too expensive for the likes of a bitcoin ASIC so I don't see them pushing process size any further than they are now; so I cant see a more efficient miner being produced for some time, the 9.5-13J/TH limit seems to be where we are for now and the immediate future.

For things to become profitable again there would need to be a 3x performance increase in terms of hash rate per ASIC and at least a 30% reduction in power consumption at the same time which is about the same step size between BM1397 and BM1370 in terms of performance, either that or BTC tripling its value between now and the next halving.

[philipma1957]

gearing your way out of low profits is a fools game.

btc price going to 200k is really important for 2028



https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator

Latest Block:   951134  (6 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   101.4049%  (1599 / 1576.85 expected, 22.15 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                           
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                           
Next Difficulty:   between 138484069907138 and 138569171763290
Next Difficulty Change:   between +1.3740% and +1.4363%
Previous Retarget:   May 15, 2026 at 11:56 AM  (+3.1215%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Friday at 7:17 AM  (in 2d 20h 32m 13s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Friday at 7:29 AM  (in 2d 20h 44m 10s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 19h 20m 41s and 13d 19h 32m 38s



the fast bump up over the last 30 hours is likely Iran gear going back online

I could see 139th may 29
then 145th          June 11

[Nexus9090]

gearing your way out of low profits is a fools game.
-snip-

Too true!!

[philipma1957]

https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator

Latest Block:   951254  (9 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   100.7696%  (1719 / 1705.87 expected, 13.13 ahead)

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                            
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 137673971756425 and 137697830050560
Next Difficulty Change:   between +0.7810% and +0.7985%
Previous Retarget:   May 15, 2026 at 11:56 AM  (+3.1215%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Friday at 9:22 AM  (in 2d 1h 7m 19s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Friday at 9:25 AM  (in 2d 1h 10m 39s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 21h 26m 1s and 13d 21h 29m 22s

1 percent bump looks about right.

price is under 75k

______________________________________
.....................................................................
Latest Block:   951443  (18 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   101.0856%  (1908 / 1887.51 expected, 20.49 ahead)


Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                            
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 138121426274329 and 138125833285751
Next Difficulty Change:   between +1.1085% and +1.1118%
Previous Retarget:   May 15, 2026 at 11:56 AM  (+3.1215%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   Tomorrow at 8:20 AM  (in 0d 17h 48m 24s)
Next Retarget (latest):   Tomorrow at 8:20 AM  (in 0d 17h 49m 1s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 13d 20h 23m 29s and 13d 20h 24m 6s

[joker_josue]

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                            
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 137673971756425 and 137697830050560

Looking at these numbers now, I thought about something I had never thought about before.
 
What does this value represent? Is it the result of multiple calculations or something like that? What exactly do these values ​​refer to?

[philipma1957]

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                            
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 137673971756425 and 137697830050560

Looking at these numbers now, I thought about something I had never thought about before.
 
What does this value represent? Is it the result of multiple calculations or something like that? What exactly do these values ​​refer to?

The goal is to pick a Difficulty hard enough to make exactly 

2016  blocks in 2 weeks

  last jump the diff was 132.47 trillion and we made 2016 blocks in just under 2 weeks.

So they raised the diff to 136.607 trillion which should let us do 2016 blocks in 2 weeks

It looks close and that we may be within 1 hour of 2 weeks which is why  the future guess is a diff of 137.67 to 137.69 trillion

[joker_josue]

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                            
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 137673971756425 and 137697830050560

Looking at these numbers now, I thought about something I had never thought about before.
 
What does this value represent? Is it the result of multiple calculations or something like that? What exactly do these values ​​refer to?

The goal is to pick a Difficulty hard enough to make exactly 

2016  blocks in 2 weeks

  last jump the diff was 132.47 trillion and we made 2016 blocks in just under 2 weeks.

So they raised the diff to 136.607 trillion which should let us do 2016 blocks in 2 weeks

It looks close and that we may be within 1 hour of 2 weeks which is why  the future guess is a diff of 137.67 to 137.69 trillion

My question/doubt is not about that.

What is this 132.47 trillion? 132.47 trillion of what?

[Nexus9090]

Previous Difficulty:   132472011079030.5                            
Current Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                            
Next Difficulty:   between 137673971756425 and 137697830050560

Looking at these numbers now, I thought about something I had never thought about before.
 
What does this value represent? Is it the result of multiple calculations or something like that? What exactly do these values ​​refer to?

The goal is to pick a Difficulty hard enough to make exactly  

2016  blocks in 2 weeks

  last jump the diff was 132.47 trillion and we made 2016 blocks in just under 2 weeks.

So they raised the diff to 136.607 trillion which should let us do 2016 blocks in 2 weeks

It looks close and that we may be within 1 hour of 2 weeks which is why  the future guess is a diff of 137.67 to 137.69 trillion

My question/doubt is not about that.

What is this 132.47 trillion? 132.47 trillion of what?

You're talking about submitted share values, which are the result of your ASIC/Miner hashing the block header

Every Bitcoin miner takes the current block header data, combines it with a variable called a nonce and extranonce as well as timestamp and version data, and runs the result through the SHA-256 hash function twice I believe.

The output is a 64-character hexadecimal string "The HASH"

If that output hexadecimal string falls below the current network difficulty target, the miner has solved a block.

--edit--

You might want to have a read here

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty

[philipma1957]

https://newhedge.io/bitcoin/difficulty-estimator


Latest Block:   951584  (17 minutes ago)

Current Pace:   93.4046%  (33 / 35.33 expected, 2.33 behind)

Previous Difficulty:   136607070854775.1                           
Current Difficulty:   138955357012247.3                           
Next Difficulty:   between 133196253720146 and 138760546159744
Next Difficulty Change:   between -4.1446% and -0.1402%
Previous Retarget:   Today at 6:20 AM  (+1.7190%)
Next Retarget (earliest):   June 12, 2026 at 7:06 AM  (in 13d 18h 52m 55s)
Next Retarget (latest):   June 13, 2026 at 6:04 AM  (in 14d 17h 50m 13s)
Projected Epoch Length:   between 14d 0h 46m 13s and 14d 23h 43m 31s



below is an analogy


so think of the new number as 138.9 trillion  ping pong balls.

so for 2016 blocks your asic has to get the correct ping pong ball to win


the more ping pong balls the harder it is to hit a block.

so we made 2016 blocks faster than 2 weeks last jump when there were 136.6 trillion ping pong balls.

so we made it harder to make this 2016 blocks.

always hoping to get exactly 2 weeks

all of this is a bit skewed due to the fact we know there was enough gear to make difficulty as high as 155 trillion ping pong balls.


now the ping pong analogy is a poor one but it is essentially true.

[joker_josue]

~~

~~

Thank you for the explanation.

So many years of Bitcoin experience and some mining analysis, and I had never explored these values.
I may have seen this before, but I couldn't remember. 

And I understood the analogy with ping pong balls.