Difficulty Falls to an 11-Month Low
Bitcoin miners have been navigating intense margin pressure since hashprice, the estimated daily value of one petahash per second (PH/s) of computing power, fell below the $28-per-PH/s threshold last week.
With bitcoin’s market price showing renewed strength despite today’s softer conditions, hashprice has staged a modest recovery, climbing back above $30 per PH/s to reach $32.51 per day, according to data compiled by Hashrate Index.
Negative Adjustments Outnumber Gains in 2026
One welcome reprieve for miners arrived at block 953568, when mining difficulty fell 10.09%, marking the second-largest decline of 2026. Of the 12 difficulty epochs recorded this year, seven ended in negative adjustments while five posted gains.
Over that stretch, the network has spent more time trimming difficulty than adding it, a pattern that reflects broader hashrate contraction and redistribution pressures that have persisted year to date.
A Year of Sharp Difficulty Swings
The highest difficulty reading of the year reached 146.47 trillion on Jan. 8, while the latest figure of 124.93 trillion now marks the lowest level recorded in 2026. The gap between the year’s peak and current trough stands at roughly 21.54 trillion, illustrating the sizable swing in mining difficulty since the start of the year. The year’s steepest difficulty reduction occurred on Feb. 7, when the metric fell 11.16%, setting the benchmark for the largest downward adjustment recorded in 2026.
It was followed immediately by a 14.73% jump on Feb. 19, making the two consecutive epochs the most volatile back-to-back adjustment cycle of the year. While 124.93 trillion marks the lowest difficulty reading of 2026, it also represents the weakest level recorded since July 12, 2025. In other words, the network’s current difficulty sits at its lowest point in 11 months and two days.
The reversal stems from a decline in overall computational power, as Bitcoin’s hashrate retreated from the 1,000-plus exahash per second (EH/s) territory seen in late April and early May to roughly 893 EH/s today. That pullback slowed block production considerably, pushing average block intervals beyond 11 minutes for much of the past two weeks. Following the latest difficulty adjustment, however, the network has begun to rebalance, with block times averaging 10 minutes and 37 seconds over the last 24 hours.
All Eyes on the Next Recalibration
Nearly 100 blocks have been mined since the latest difficulty adjustment took effect, and the network’s next recalibration is projected to occur on or around Jun. 28, 2026.
Whether the current difficulty low proves to be a temporary floor or the opening stage of a broader contraction will depend largely on the trajectory of hashrate and block production ahead of the Jun. 28 recalibration. If hashprice continues to improve and block intervals keep moving closer to Bitcoin’s target pace, the next difficulty epoch could pivot higher and deliver the first notable upward adjustment in more than a month.
