Futures
Access hundreds of perpetual contracts
CFD
Gold
One platform for global traditional assets
Options
Hot
Trade European-style vanilla options
Unified Account
Maximize your capital efficiency
Demo Trading
Introduction to Futures Trading
Learn the basics of futures trading
Futures Events
Join events to earn rewards
Demo Trading
Use virtual funds to practice risk-free trading
Launch
CandyDrop
Collect candies to earn airdrops
Launchpool
Quick staking, earn potential new tokens
HODLer Airdrop
Hold GT and get massive airdrops for free
Pre-IPOs
Unlock full access to global stock IPOs
Alpha Points
Trade on-chain assets and earn airdrops
Futures Points
Earn futures points and claim airdrop rewards
Promotions
AI
Gate AI
Your all-in-one conversational AI partner
Gate AI Bot
Use Gate AI directly in your social App
GateClaw
Gate Blue Lobster, ready to go
Gate for AI Agent
AI infrastructure, Gate MCP, Skills, and CLI
Gate Skills Hub
10K+ Skills
From office tasks to trading, the all-in-one skill hub makes AI even more useful.
GateRouter
Smartly choose from 40+ AI models, with 0% extra fees
Will Bitcoin mining difficulty decrease for the first time in 2026? Can miners finally breathe a sigh of relief?
【Crypto World】Bitcoin mining difficulty slightly decreased to 146.4 trillion during its first adjustment in 2026, providing a breather for miners who have battled for a year. Lowering costs and improving efficiency, this year has been challenging for the entire industry.
But don’t celebrate too early — the block time has already exceeded 10 minutes. According to protocol rules, the next adjustment on January 22 is expected to push the difficulty back to around 148.2 trillion.
It seems that difficulty is still hovering at a high level, reflecting the aftereffects of the 2024 halving event. Miners are indeed having a tough time; profitability indicators like hash rate prices have fallen below sustainable levels. The short-term difficulty decrease is more of a buffer than a shift. The entire mining ecosystem still needs to adapt to this new normal of high difficulty and low profits.