Bitcoin difficulty jumps 7.15%; hashprice drops 18%

On June 26, 2026, at block height 955,584 Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased by 7.15% to 133.87 trillion. The adjustment followed a 10.09% decline in the previous 2,016-block period. Network hashrate remained around 984 exahashes per second (EH/s) at press time.

Hashprice, the expected daily revenue for one petahash per second, fell to $28.68 per PH/s on June 27 from $35.12 on May 27, a decline of 18.34% over 30 days. Bitcoin traded near $60,262 on June 27, 2026.

Bitcoin’s difficulty target resets automatically every 2,016 blocks to aim for an average block interval of about 10 minutes. An increase in difficulty makes valid hashes harder to find; the recent change means finding a block is 7.15% harder than in the prior epoch. When the network launched, valid hashes required roughly eight leading zeros in hexadecimal; at today’s difficulty a valid hash needs about 22 leading zeros.

Miners are operating under narrower margins after the decline in hashprice and lower bitcoin prices over the past 12 months. Network hashrate has stayed near the 1,000 EH/s range as more efficient equipment and miners with access to low-cost or flexible power remain active. Mining revenue comes primarily from block rewards and transaction fees; lower fees have reduced one component of miner income.

Across 13 difficulty epochs in 2026 there have been seven reductions and six increases. The cumulative size of reductions across the year totals about -38.22%, while cumulative increases total about +31.04%.

Operators decide whether to keep rigs online based on hardware efficiency and local power costs. Powering down mining machines stops ongoing operating costs but ends the ability to mine additional bitcoin while machines are offline. The protocol’s scheduled difficulty adjustments continue to target consistent block production near every ten minutes.