Market Analysis Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty is increasing by roughly 11% on Jan. 9, according to data from BTC.com. This marks the biggest increase in nearly four months that will put the metric over 20 trillion for the first time ever. "Hashrate is on a tear!" commented popular pseudonymous Bitcoin trader hodlonaut three days ago. "When difficulty readjusts in 3 days, it will crush through 20T for the first time in Bitcoin history." Bitcoin network difficulty reaches 20 trillion The network difficulty is a relative measure of how hard it is to mine a new block for the Bitcoin blockchain. With the hash rate currently at record levels of around 148 EH/s, the difficulty adjustment, which occurs every 2016 blocks, makes sure that the time between blocks mined remains 10 minutes on average.