Bitcoin difficulty falls 2.3% as hashrate drops under 1 ZH/s

The Bitcoin network reduced mining difficulty by 2.3% to 132.47 trillion on May 1 at block 947,520 after reported hashrate fell below one zettahash per second. Average block time lengthened to roughly 10 minutes 28 seconds.

The adjustment follows a 2.43% reduction on April 17 and is the sixth difficulty cut so far in 2026. Difficulty is recalculated every 2,016 blocks to target a ten-minute block interval, so lower hashrate produced slower block cadence and prompted the reduction.

Reported network hashrate ranged about 899 to 958 exahash per second over the 24 hours ending May 3. The network had topped 1,000 EH/s before April 19 and then trended lower; at the adjustment the hashrate was near 899 EH/s.

Estimated hashprice, the daily revenue per petahash per second, rose from $34.39 to $37.52/PH/s over the same period. That change increased short-term revenue per unit of hashing power even as total computational power declined and block intervals lengthened.

Over the past seven days miners produced 987 blocks. Foundry USA mined 311 blocks (31.51%), Antpool mined about 163 blocks (16.51%), and ViaBTC mined 102 blocks (10.33%). Those three pools together accounted for 58.35% of blocks during the week. Data show 115 distinct pools or entities currently contributing hashrate to the network.

More than 1,800 blocks remain before the next scheduled difficulty recalculation, expected on or around May 17. The recalculation will set the next difficulty level based on block times recorded over that epoch.

Background: Mining difficulty measures how hard it is to find a valid block and is adjusted every 2,016 blocks to aim for one block about every ten minutes. Hashrate denotes the total computational power securing the network. Hashprice estimates miners’ daily revenue per unit of hashing power and changes with bitcoin price, transaction fees and network conditions.