Bitcoin mining difficulty has dropped during heat wave [50]
This is the third consecutive adjustment, bringing it down by 5%
Good afternoon, friends!
Bitcoin mining difficulty dropped yet again last week amidst a heat wave as miners shut down their machines in order to lower the power demands so that electrical grids could handle the load. This led to a downward adjustment in the difficulty by approximately 5%.
The difficulty of mining a bitcoin block adjusts automatically every two weeks to keep the time needed to mine a new block at around 10 minutes. As computing power is added and hashrate goes up, the difficulty tends to go up, but as computing power gets removed, it goes down – and that’s what happened in the past few weeks.
Extreme heat and rising electrical costs have led bitcoin miners to pull machines off the network, which has reduced the number of machines mining. This has lowered the overall hashrate and caused the difficulty to adjust downwards for the third consecutive time.
"The initial drop in the hashrate at the middle of June was likely caused by the plummeting BTC price," Mellerud said. "But the second drop at the beginning of July was likely caused by miners powering down in response to high electricity prices."
On the social impact DAO front, ChoiceDAO launched its 26-day donation drive on July 20, as mentioned below in the news section. The organization is seeking to raise $1 million in 26 days, the duration representing the number of states expected to fully restrict abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court of the United States overturning Roe v Wade.
As usual, keep reading for the long-form round-up of the news after the fold, and see you next week!
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Blockchain Bulletin
ChoiceDAO launches its $1M in 26 days donation drive. ChoiceDAO, the DAO that emerged in response to SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade, has officially launched its donation drive to raise $1 million in 26 days.
Bitcoin mining difficulty drops during summer heat. Bitcoin miners are feeling the heat across the U.S., as a result, the Bitcoin mining difficulty has seen its third consecutive mining difficulty drop and fell by 5%, reported CoinDesk.
Blockchain Behind the Scenes
Minecraft bans NFTs from its platform. Mojang Studios has officially banned NFTs and blockchain technology from its platforms including any integrations with its Minecraft client or associated with its in-game content.
Epic Games says that it will not follow suit with Minecraft. Upon the news that Minecraft was banning NFTs and blockchain technology, Epic Game’s CEO Tim Sweeny said that his company would not follow the controversial decision.
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