Bitcoin mining difficulty breaks through 50T for the first time

Bitcoin's mining difficulty has risen to a new all-time high as miners deploy more machines to take advantage of a recent surge in revenue.

The price of bitcoin remains stuck in a tight range, but mining the world's largest crypto asset has never been more difficult. Its network fundamentals paint a decidedly bullish picture.

According to data from BTC.com, the difficulty of Bitcoin mining soared to 50.68 trillion this week, a record high.

The latest difficulty adjustment occurred at block height 792,288, a 3.4% increase on May 31. This is the first time Bitcoin has broken through the 50 trillion mark.

Further validating miners' belief and competition is the network hash rate, which hovers around an all-time high of 400 EH/s.

Foundry USA leads with a market share of 28.9%, contributing the most hashrate. Next is Antpool with 22.6%, followed by F2Pool with 14.1%.

The surge in bitcoin miners is a welcome respite after suffering immensely due to market turmoil last year.

For example, the recent Ordinals craze helped the network's miners by raising transaction fees.

In fact, daily mining revenue hit a five-year high last month, which was touted as a rare event.

Due to the popularity of Ordinals, miners are now increasingly deploying more mining rigs, thus increasing the computing power of the network.

Meanwhile, most bitcoin mining-related stocks in the U.S. posted gains this week after President Joe Biden agreed to scrap a planned 30% tax on the electricity companies use.

Riot Platforms led gains among major mining stocks, followed by Iris Energy, Hive Blockchain, Cleanspark, Hut 8 Mining and Marathon Digital Holding.