Bitcoin Mining Difficulty May Fall 1.2% in Next Adjustment

Bitcoin adjusts mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks to keep block production near a 10-minute target. According to Odaily, if blocks are produced faster than planned, difficulty rises in the next period, and if they are slower, difficulty falls. In February 2026, Winter Storm Fern forced large miners in major U.S. mining regions, including Texas, to shut down equipment. Bitcoin hashrate fell from a peak near 1.13 ZH/s to about 663 EH/s, and on February 7, mining difficulty dropped 11.16%. After miners came back online and hashrate recovered to nearly 1 ZH/s, network difficulty rose 14.7% on February 19 to 144.4 trillion, the largest percentage increase since 2021. On June 13, Bitcoin mining difficulty fell again by about 9.91%. At the time, Bitcoin prices had dropped about 15%, and some listed miners shifted machine and data center capacity to AI and high-performance computing workloads. By late July, early data for the next difficulty adjustment showed a possible decline of about 1.2%.