The automatic readjustment on February 15 caused a significant uptick in Bitcoin's mining difficulty, surpassing the 80 trillion mark on Saturday, February 16. According to the latest data from BTC.com, the combined computing power utilized by miners, known as the Bitcoin network's hash rate, reached 562.81 exahashes per second (EH/s), while Bitcoin's mining difficulty hit a record-breaking 81.73 trillion. This upward trend has been ongoing since January 2023 and is expected to continue towards 100 trillion in the coming months.

Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism means that higher difficulty levels necessitate miners to dedicate more computational power and energy to solve cryptographic puzzles. Year-over-year data indicates that Bitcoin mining difficulty has more than doubled.

Monitoring data from BTC.com also suggests that Bitcoin's mining difficulty was poised to increase by approximately 6% following its automatic readjustment on February 15, potentially surpassing the 80 trillion mark for the first time.

The cryptocurrency was valued at $52,000 during the Wall Street opening on February 16, with this stability coinciding with positive macroeconomic data from the United States, exceeding economic forecasts.

Bitcoin mining rewards, designed within the token's structure to counter inflation, are set to undergo halving in April, occurring roughly every four years. The last halving took place in May 2020, resulting in reduced rewards for miners.

The upcoming halving event will decrease current Bitcoin rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, potentially prompting less efficient miners to cease operations, leading to a decline in the hash rate and possible offline mining rigs. Consequently, Bitcoin's mining difficulty is expected to decrease as the network aims to maintain consistent block production every 10 minutes.

Analysts from Galaxy Digital anticipate that around 20% of Bitcoin's current hash rate may go offline after the halving event, leaving primarily efficient mining rigs operational on the network.