I noticed an interesting situation with Bitcoin mining. I looked into the mining difficulty data — it has slightly decreased to 146.4 trillion. This is the first adjustment of the year, but analysts already predict that at the end of January, the mining difficulty will rise again to 148.20 trillion. The average block time is now about 9.88 minutes, slightly below the targeted 10 minutes, so an increase is inevitable.

It's especially interesting to see how miners managed throughout last year. In 2025, the mining difficulty repeatedly hit new highs, although it did not reach the record of 155.9 trillion from November. But what’s concerning is that the halving in April 2024 cut rewards in half, and then the crypto market started to decline. In November, the miner hash rate price fell below the breakeven point, literally below $35 per petahash per second per day. That was a multi-year low.

Bitcoin’s price then plummeted 30% in November, falling just above $80,000. It’s now around $78,750, so recovery is slow. The October high was above $125,000, far from here. Plus, import tariffs added difficulties. It turns out that last year, miners faced a perfect storm — rising mining difficulty amid falling prices and reduced rewards. It will be interesting to see how the industry adapts further.