Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Below Record 374 Days: A First
Bitcoin mining difficulty has now sat below its record for 374 days, the longest stretch on record. Bitcoin.com News flagged it on November 7. We checked the numbers against mempool.space, and they hold up.
What the bitcoin mining difficulty data shows
The record is 155.97 trillion, set at block 921,312 on October 29, 2025. The latest adjustment, also on October 29, 2026, lifted difficulty 5.54% to 148.36 trillion. That is still about 4.9% under the peak.
The old record for the longest gap was 364 days, from August 2011 to July 2012, according to Bitcoin.com News. The 2021 China mining ban gap was about 253 days. Economist Saifedean Ammous noted on X that neither was as long.
The low point came in mid-June 2026, when difficulty fell 10.09% to 124.93 trillion. Since then it has climbed back in steps. Hashrate has also returned to about 1 zettahash, per the same report.
What comes next
The next change lands at block 975,744, in about 6 days. Right now mempool.space estimates -4.3%. A drop that size would push a new record further out. However, that estimate moves with every block, so treat it as a lean, not a promise.
Miner math: what difficulty and price do to your margin today
Here is the live maths on November 7. Bitcoin is $75,738 and the network is 1006 EH/s, so hashprice is about $34.13 per petahash per day. That is what one PH/s of hashing earns before power.
| Machine | 5c/kWh | 8c/kWh | 12c/kWh | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S19 (95 TH/s, 3250 W) | -$0.66 | -$3.00 | -$6.12 | 4.2c |
| Antminer S19k Pro (115 TH/s, 2645 W) | $0.75 | -$1.15 | -$3.69 | 6.2c |
| Antminer S19 XP (141 TH/s, 3010 W) | $1.20 | -$0.97 | -$3.86 | 6.7c |
| Antminer S21 Pro (234 TH/s, 3510 W) | $3.78 | $1.25 | -$2.12 | 9.5c |
Numbers are profit per day after electricity, at the three power prices shown. Break-even is the most you can pay per kilowatt-hour before the machine loses money. Specs are the manufacturer ratings; network data comes from mempool.space. Try your own power price in our free bitcoin mining profit calculator. See what these machines really sold for in our used ASIC miner price index. Want to run the same numbers on a machine you can buy today? See our used ASIC miners, or buy several at once through bulk lots.
If difficulty drops 4.3% at the next adjustment: the break-even power price on an S19k Pro rises from 6.2 to 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. At 8 cents, daily profit goes from -$1.15 to -$0.98.
The blunt answer for miners
A long gap below the record is not good news by itself. It tells us the network is not growing fast, because miners are squeezed. Several public miners have said they are shifting to AI hosting, and some have sold coin. Lower difficulty helps the miners who stay, since each machine gets a bigger share of the same reward. But the table above shows the real test: your power price against the break-even line.
If the maths says your machines lose money, see our we buy used miners page. If it says you win, browse all miners or the mining economics guides.
-Nick
ING Mining
This is general information, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile, and exchanges can fail. Please do your own research.
How this story was made: drafted with the help of AI tools from public sources, then edited by Nick Squires. See our editorial policy. Spot an error? Email ns@ingmining.com.