Block Times Reach 10:34 After almost 100 EH/s Exodus—Bitcoin Miners: What Next?
Block Times Reach 10:34 After almost 100 EH/s Exodus—Bitcoin Miners: What Next?
Data shows that almost 100 exahash every second (EH/s) of Bitcoin blockchain hashrate has left during the previous week. Much of the departure occurred once difficulty reached 123.23 trillions on April 19.
Will May 4’s Retarget Restore Bitcoin’s Equilibrium?
Since the seventeenth of April 2025, when the network was cruising at 917 EH/s, hashrateindex.com reports 91 EH/s has left. The seven-day basic moving average showed the network reached an all-time high of 926 EH/s on April 8. However, processing power dropped significantly starting April 17 and lasting nine days.
Most of this decline occurred on April 19, when difficulty rose 1.42%. That modification raised complexity to 123.23 trillion for the fourth time. The difficulty spike that caused a hashrate migration has extended block intervals beyond 10 minutes. Modern blocks averaged ten minutes and 34 seconds.
Slower block times usually reduce difficulty, therefore the May 4 retarget predicts a 5.5% decline. Last week, the hashprice—the estimated each day of 1 petahash per second (PH/s)—rose sharply, increasing miner earnings. It rose 10.53% to $48.70 per PH/s from $44.06 on April 19.
As difficulty rises, miners leave and block timings slow, as shown in Bitcoin’s recent hashrate fall. Hashprice rises during this ebb suggest more miner competition, relieving profitability constraints. The protocol’s self-correcting nature will realign incentives and maybe alleviate miners’ burden this cycle with the difficulty retarget.
