Ethereum Mining Difficulty a few centimeters from the all-time high

Ethereum’s mining difficulty reached a two-year high today.

Mining difficulty on the Ethereum blockchain rose to 3,650 terahashs around 11:15 UTC today, its second highest level ever, data from market analyst Glassnode shows.

For a hair. On August 9, 2018, Ethereum’s mining difficulty reached its all-time high of 3,651 terahashs, according to Glassnode.

Ethereum’s mining difficulty measures how difficult it is to mine blocks on the Ethereum blockchain. Mining blocks are required to process Ethereum transactions.

The mining difficulty is determined by the number of active miners on the network. An increase in the computing power of the miners increases the difficulty; this ensures that blocks are not generated at a disproportionately fast rate.

Ethereum’s mining difficulty increased throughout the year, but took off in late August, when this summer’s decentralized finance (DeFi) boom had its final cheer. Investors have pushed billions into decentralized exchanges and Ethereum-based money markets, resulting in a surge in activity in the Ethereum network.

The latest increase in mining difficulty follows the booming price of Ethereum, which topped $ 500 for the first time since the summer of 2018 and has been on the rise for months.

Perhaps Ethereum even needs to thank Bitcoin. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has risen in price by around $ 8,000 since the beginning of October, when its price was around $ 10,500.

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty tracks that of Ethereum, although Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is far off, far higher, at 134.57 EH / s. An exahash is one quintillion hashes per second.

Earlier this month, Decrypt reported that Bitcoin’s mining difficulty recorded the second largest adjustment in its 12-year history, when it fell by around -16%.

But Bitcoin miners have a long way to go before Ethereum miners overtake them.