While transaction fees on the Bitcoin network are near record lows (in BTC terms), competition in the mining industry continues to hit record highs, according to new research from blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. Mining difficulty has now reached an all-time high, requiring 122.78 units of Zettahashes per Bitcoin block to burst, which is equivalent to 15.5 trillion SHA256 hashes guessed by all 7.938 billion people on earth every 10 minutes, equivalent to unusual.
The current estimate is between 190 and 215 Exahash per second, which is about 20% higher than the all-time high reached before China’s mining ban last May.
Despite massive competition and near all-time lows for block rewards denominated in Bitcoin, miner revenue in USD is still 150% higher than after the most recent halving event in May 2020. Miners currently earn around $207,000 per Exahash hashrate.
That’s also 40% more revenue than during the last capitulation event of the bear market in 2018. Because at that time the price of Bitcoin was between $3k and $4k, and the BTC block subsidy was double what it is now.