According to Bloomberg, a significant portion of the increase in Bitcoin mining difficulty on Monday might be ascribed to Ethereum’s “Merge” upgrade. Thereby, which gave Bitcoin miners additional space.
In the two weeks prior to Monday, the Bitcoin mining difficulty, which represents the amount of effort miners must expend to validate blockchain transactions in order to mine Bitcoin, increased by 13.55%, setting a new high record.
The amount of computer power used for mining, or hashrate, fluctuates in direct proportion to changes in mining difficulty.
According to specialists, the increase in Bitcoin mining can be partially due to the decrease in Ether mining after the Merge update. Which happened on September 15, 2022, according to a Bloomberg report.
The second-largest blockchain in the world, Ethereum, switched from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake during The Merge. Thereby, reducing its carbon footprint by 99%.
According to Bloomberg, the upgrade replaced almost 1 million mining computers with holders of Ether for mining Ethereum cryptocurrency.
Proof-of-work requires miners to compete by using their computers to solve mathematical problems in order to extract cryptocurrencies. Whereas proof-of-stake allows consumers to mine cryptocurrency by staking a particular amount of tokens.
