Update (2-7-2026) This article has been updated to provide the latest projections for the next Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment.
The Bitcoin network mining difficulty — the measure of how hard it is to add new blocks to the Bitcoin (BTC) ledger — fell roughly 11.16% over a single adjustment period, the largest single drop since China’s 2021 mining ban. Difficulty is now 125.86 T and the adjustment took effect at block 935,429, according to CoinWarz. Average block time is about 9.47 minutes, slightly below the 10-minute target.
CoinWarz projects difficulty will rise about 5.63% to 132.96 T at the next adjustment on Feb. 20.
China’s May 2021 ban and crackdown on crypto mining forced several steep downward adjustments between May and July 2021, ranging from about 12.6% to 27.9%, per historic CoinWarz data.
This recent drop came amid a broad crypto market downturn that erased more than half of Bitcoin’s value from an all-time high above $125,000 to about $60,000, alongside operational disruptions from a severe U.S. winter storm that temporarily curtailed miner activity.
Winter Storm Fern affected 34 states across roughly 2,000 square miles with snow, ice and extreme cold that disrupted power infrastructure. The grid disruptions forced many U.S. miners to reduce energy use or stop operations, lowering total network hashrate — the combined computational power securing Bitcoin.
Foundry USA, the largest mining pool by hashrate, briefly lost around 60% of its hashing power during the storm, falling from nearly 400 exahashes per second (EH/s) to about 198 EH/s. At the time of writing, Foundry’s hashrate had recovered to over 354 EH/s and it held roughly 29.47% market share, per Hashrate Index.
Overall network hashrate fell to a four-month low in January amid worsening market conditions and a trend of some miners reallocating capacity to AI data centers and other high-performance computing uses.
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently. Read our Editorial Policy https://cointelegraph.com/editorial-policy
