The Bitcoin mining difficulty rate is something that few people in the cryptocurrency world consider, but it is an important component of the Bitcoin blockchain architecture. The Bitcoin mining difficulty rate makes headlines now and then, but what exactly is it and why is it so relevant to Bitcoin?
Block mining
The Bitcoin mining difficulty rate, in essence, indicates how difficult and time-consuming it is to find the correct hash for each block on the Bitcoin blockchain. Miners compete to solve difficult mathematical problems and add the next block to the blockchain, with the winner receiving 6.25 BTC.
The number of machines mining Bitcoin has increased over time as the endeavor has grown in popularity, increasing the amount of computational power devoted to achieving this goal. If left unchecked, this computational power will rip through the Bitcoin blockchain in a matter of years, with the last block mined long before the expected 2140.
As a result, when the total computing power exceeds a certain threshold, the difficulty level changes automatically, making mining the blocks slightly more difficult. A good analogy is the rising gradient on a running machine to slow the runner down so they don't finish the race too soon.
Final thought
It's easy to underestimate how forward-thinking the Bitcoin mining difficulty definition is. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin, anticipated that computers would become more efficient over time (he couldn't have predicted the development of Bitcoin-specific ASIC miners), so he made sure to provide an algorithm that accommodated such increases decades in advance.
The ingenuity of the individual or persons who invented Bitcoin can be seen in the design and implementation of a staggered Bitcoin mining difficulty scale, which is one of the reasons why Bitcoin is possibly the most full decentralized system in the world.
