Bitcoin’s mining difficulty had not returned to its prior high by Nov. 7, extending the record gap to 374 days.
The prior record was 155.97 trillion on Oct. 29, 2025. The post-2011 crash gap lasted 364 days; the one after China’s 2021 mining ban lasted 253 days.
Difficulty dropped to 124.93 trillion in mid-June 2026, about 20% below the peak, before rising to 148.36 trillion in October. At the Oct. 29 adjustment, it increased 5.54% to that level at block 973,728, leaving it about 4.9% shy of the record. EconoTimes previously covered the adjustment alongside mining revenue figures.
Bitcoin’s protocol retunes difficulty after every 2,016 blocks to keep block production averaging near one every 10 minutes. A higher difficulty setting means miners must expend more computing effort to discover each block.
Economist Saifedean Ammous said the 374-day stretch exceeded the span of Bitcoin’s 95% price decline in 2011 and the period after China’s mining ban. He characterized current conditions for Bitcoin mining as a new environment.
