Good news for Bitcoin miners as this metric reaches new ATH

• The Bitcoin network difficulty has gone over 72 trillion.
• Miners have also been seeing increased revenue as difficulty increases.

Recently, Bitcoin [BTC] experienced increased activity on its network, leading to changes in mining difficulty. This increase in difficulty contributed to a rise in miners’ revenue, which reached a yearly high.

Bitcoin gets more difficult

An examination of the Bitcoin network for 2023 showed 27 changes in difficulty. These changes consisted of 20 increases and seven decreases. The most significant increase was on the 15th of January — a substantial 10.26% rise.

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In contrast, the smallest increase was on the 9th of August, with a modest 0.12% increase at block 802,368.

The most noteworthy decline in difficulty took place at the beginning of the year, specifically on the 2nd of January, witnessing a drop of 3.59%. Conversely, the smallest decrease occurred on the 12th of February, with a 0.49% reduction at block 776,160.

As of press time, the network difficulty was around 72 trillion, marking the highest point reached throughout the year. To provide context, the difficulty level was around 34 trillion at the start of 2023, according to blockchain.com.

This meant that there was a substantial increase of nearly 38 trillion over the past few months.

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How the Bitcoin difficulty has impacted miners

December stood out as a significant month for the Bitcoin network, evidenced by the upward trend of its network difficulty. In addition to the surge in network difficulty during the month, miners’ revenue also experienced a noteworthy increase. 

Source: Blockchain.com

A closer examination of the revenue chart showed a sharp rise on the 17th of December, going over 64,000. This sharp rise marked the highest point reached throughout the year.

Although it has since decreased, the revenue has consistently maintained a level above the preceding months. At the time of this writing, it was over 44,000.

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Tracking the BTC transactions

One factor contributing to the rise in network difficulty and miners’ revenue is the volume of transactions. AMBCrypto’s study of BTC’s volume chart on Santiment showed a consistently substantial volume in recent weeks.

The chart showed that the daily transaction volume in December exceeded $40 billion. As of this writing, the volume was around $27 billion. This sustained high volume highlighted the active nature of Bitcoin transactions during this period.

Source: Santiment