Foreign media, citing Galaxy Research, reported that the Bitcoin network may experience one of the largest mining difficulty adjustments in recent years this week. As BTC prices continue to weaken, miner profitability has been squeezed, prompting some mining equipment to shut down and pushing the network’s difficulty into a downward adjustment cycle.
June 13 may see a reduction of 10.3%
The article notes that Bitcoin returned to around $62,826 during trading on June 11, rising 2.23% over 24 hours, but has still accumulated a decline of approximately 15% since early June. Amid price pressure, miner revenues have also contracted, placing greater operational strain on higher-cost mining facilities.
According to analyst calculations, Bitcoin will undergo its next difficulty adjustment around June 13, 2026, at block height 953,568, with an expected decrease of approximately 10.3%. If realized, this will be the 11th largest negative difficulty adjustment in Bitcoin’s history.
This year has seen the second significant pullback.
This is the second significant difficulty reduction within 2026. Previously, on February 7, the Bitcoin network reduced difficulty by 11.16%, a move driven by a price decline and disruptions to some mining operations due to winter storms.
The Bitcoin difficulty adjustment mechanism automatically changes based on the network's block production speed. When the coin price declines and mining rewards decrease, some miners shut down their equipment, causing the network's hash rate to drop and block production to slow down. The system then reduces the difficulty to restore the target pace of approximately one block every 10 minutes.
Significant historical downward adjustments are commonly seen during periods of pressure.
From this perspective, the difficulty adjustment is not merely a technical parameter change but also reflects that mining profitability pressures have been transmitted to the network level. For miners still operating, the lower difficulty helps reduce the cost of mining each block and improves the short-term operating environment.
Historical data cited in the article shows that Bitcoin’s significant difficulty adjustments downward have typically occurred during periods of industry stress, including China’s comprehensive crackdown on mining in 2021, market panic triggered by the pandemic in 2020, and earlier phases of price bubble bursts.
- Reduced by 27.94% on July 3, 2021
- Decreased by 18.03% on October 31, 2011
- Decreased by 16.05% on November 3, 2020
Additional information: The article also notes that if Bitcoin subsequently breaks below the dense trading zone around $62,000, historical trading volume distribution suggests that the next support range could lie between $25,500 and $31,500. This section represents a hypothetical scenario from foreign media and is not an established fact.