On October 17, mining a block of Bitcoin [BTC] took more than an hour, delaying the completion of thousands of transactions. Foundry USA, which controls over 23% of the mining pool, and Luxor mined their most recent blocks 85 minutes apart, according to on-chain data compiled by a few block explorers.
Mining took an unprecedented 85 minutes at block height 759053-054, much longer than the estimated 10 minutes. More than 13,000 transactions were stuck in the confirmation phase prior to mining the most recent block.
Mining is harder, and profits are down.
Although it was possible to speculate on a plausible explanation for the block generation delay, the exact cause was unknown. The difficulty of mining BTC increased, making it harder to get new blocks.
Additionally, the hashrate increased, requiring more energy to generate and add new blocks than was previously possible. Mining was now more expensive than ever because of the worldwide increase in electricity prices. The obvious choice was renewable power sources, but building a system large enough to power mining equipment would be prohibitively expensive.
Despite the costs associated with mining, the revenue chart showed a decline, indicating that mining was less profitable. The decreasing size of the block reward and the declining value of Bitcoin are two possible causes of this loss.
Additionally, during the crypto bear market, some mining companies had to close due to the unprofitability of BTC mining. The delay may have been caused by the additional strain on the existing miners.
BTC resistance
The price of BTC did not appear to be affected by the delay in adding blocks. As of October 17, its price movement over a 12-hour period had increased by more than 0.60 percent. However, the trend line indicated a downward trend in BTC’s overall trend.
Between $20,418 and $20,865, there appeared to have been price movement resistance. It appeared as though the support levels—between $18,500 and $18,104—were holding.
The 200 Moving Average, which effectively acted as an additional resistance, was a little bit higher than the levels of resistance as indicated by the blue line. The 50 Moving Average was seen as additional resistance, but it appeared to have been breached in the 12-hour period.
An unaffordable fail
The block time of Bitcoin was the slowest during the time of the China cryptocurrency ban. In 2021, a year in which China intensified its campaign against cryptocurrencies, block addition exceeded 100 minutes.
As of October 17, Coinmarketcap reported that BTC trade volume within a single day exceeded $26 billion.If blocks were constantly failing, millions of transactions would fail. This will make Bitcoin less appealing and may lower its price.
