BTChub
Bitcoin· October 16, 2026· 3 min read· A BTChub original

Bitcoin Difficulty Rose 5.92% at Block 971,712, the Largest Increase Since June

Bitcoin's mining difficulty reset to 140.58 trillion at block 971,712 on October 16, up 5.92% from 132.72 trillion and the largest increase since the +7.15% adjustment on June 27. The same Bitcoin now pays miners about 5.6% less per unit of hashrate: at the October 15 close of $82,133.70, subsidy-only hashprice falls from $38.90 to $36.73 per PH/s per day.

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Key takeaways

  1. Difficulty went from 132.72T to 140.58T (+5.92%) at block 971,712, mined at 12:37 UTC on October 16, 2026 [1][2].
  2. It is the largest increase since the +7.15% adjustment at block 955,584 on June 27, 2026, and leaves difficulty 9.9% below its all-time high of 155.97T set at block 921,312 on October 29, 2025 [1].
  3. At the $82,133.70 October 15 close, subsidy-only hashprice drops from $38.90 to $36.73 per PH/s per day; the electricity breakeven for a 20 J/TH fleet drops from about $81 to $77 per MWh [1][3].
  4. mempool.space's early estimate for the next retarget, at block 973,728 around October 30, is +2.44%, made with 0.1% of the epoch elapsed [4].

What changed

Bitcoin's difficultydifficultyA protocol setting that adjusts every ~2 weeks to keep blocks arriving about every 10 minutes, rising and falling with hashrate.See it on the site → retargetsretargetThe difficulty reset: every 2,016 blocks (about two weeks) Bitcoin re-tunes how hard mining is, so blocks keep coming about every 10 minutes.See it on the site → every 2,016 blocks so that blocks keep arriving about every 10 minutes. The retarget at block 971,712, mined at 12:37 UTC (8:37 AM ET) on October 16, 2026, raised it from 132.72 trillion to 140.58 trillion, a 5.92% increase 12.

The two epochs before it moved +4.16% on September 19 and −0.03% on October 3 1. Today's step is the largest since the +7.15% adjustment at block 955,584 on June 27, 2026. Difficulty is still 9.9% below its all-time high of 155.97 trillion, set at block 921,312 on October 29, 2025 1.

What it means for miners

Difficulty sets how many hashes a block takes, so revenue per unit of hashratehashrateThe total computing power securing the Bitcoin network, in hashes per second — a measure of how much work backs the chain.See it on the site → moves inversely with it. Using the October 15 Kraken close of $82,133.70 and the 3.125 BTC block subsidy, hashpricehashpriceWhat a miner earns per unit of hashpower per day — revenue divided by hashrate. It falls as competition rises or price drops.See it on the site → falls from $38.90 to $36.73 per PH/sPH/sPetahashes per second: a quadrillion guesses a second, the unit for a fleet of mining machines. One current machine does about 0.2 PH/s (200 TH/s). per day, a 5.6% cut, before any price move 13. Transaction fees added only about 0.7% on top over the last 144 blocks (3.14 of 453.14 BTC) 5.

Expressed as power: a fleet running at 20 J/THJ/THJoules per terahash: how much electricity a mining machine burns for each unit of work. Lower is more efficient. New machines are around 15–20; older ones 30 or more. draws 0.48 MWhMWhMegawatt-hour, 1,000 kWh: the unit wholesale power is priced in. $76 per MWh is 7.6¢ per kWh, the unit on a household bill. per PH/s per day, so the most it can pay for electricity and still cover it falls from about $81 to $77 per MWh. That is still well above recent average real-time prices at the ERCOTERCOTThe Electric Reliability Council of Texas: the operator of most of Texas's power grid and its wholesale electricity market, home to many US Bitcoin miners., MISO and NYISO hubs BTChub tracks, but the margin is thinner 3.

What to watch

mempool.space estimates the next retarget, at block 973,728 around October 30, at +2.44% 4. The estimate was made with 0.1% of the epoch elapsed, so it will move a lot as blocks arrive. The live figure is on BTChub's Monitor and Network pages.

The network got 5.9% harder overnight. The price didn't move to match.

Sources

  1. [1]mempool.space — Difficulty adjustment history (/api/v1/mining/hashrate/3y), retrieved October 16, 2026 — https://mempool.space/api/v1/mining/hashrate/3y
  2. [2]mempool.space — Block 971,712 (timestamp 1792154251 = 2026-10-16 12:37:31 UTC), retrieved October 16, 2026 — https://mempool.space/block/00000000000000000000c185f0906690a08d62d6fe842682a888d5560217e467
  3. [3]BTChub — daily close from Kraken (public/btc-history.json, October 15, 2026: $82,133.70); hashprice = subsidy × 86,400 × price × 10^15 ÷ (difficulty × 2^32) — https://btchub.opnorange.com/methodology
  4. [4]mempool.space — Difficulty adjustment estimate (/api/v1/difficulty-adjustment), retrieved October 16, 2026 — https://mempool.space/api/v1/difficulty-adjustment
  5. [5]mempool.space — Reward stats, last 144 blocks (971,571–971,714), retrieved October 16, 2026 — https://mempool.space/api/v1/mining/reward-stats/144
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