Although the latest increase is not as significant as the previous difficulty adjustment of approximately 14% earlier in October, it still means miners will need to use more resources to do the same amount of work. 

Mining difficulty refers to the amount of work that must be done on a computer to verify Bitcoin transactions (in other words, it is how hard it is to mine new blocks and earn rewards).

The difficulty of the network is adjusted every two weeks to reflect the level of competition among miners. As the difficulty level drops, so does competition for mining resources. 

While this is happening, the number of machines connected to the Bitcoin network, as measured by its average hash rate, or the computational power it uses to process transactions, has increased to 263 EH/s from 258 EH/s the day before. 

Competition Among Bitcoin Miners Increases

Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, is struggling to stay at or above $19,000.This is what prompted the most recent increase in mining difficulty. 

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $19,314, up 0.2% on the day and 0.7% in the last week. 

This is bad news for miners who are already struggling to make ends meet because they are required to sell more Bitcoin than they mine. 

The amount of Bitcoin held in reserve by mining companies crashed to an all-time low of 1.91 million BTC this month. This is a level not seen since February 2010, when the network was only six months old.

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