The difficulty of bitcoin mining has decreased by 16%.

Bitcoin mining difficulty decreased to 21.05 trillion conventional units during May 30, which occurred at block #685440. This decrease was 16% compared to the historical maximum, which was fixed on May 13 this year.

It is worth noting that the interval between two consecutive blocks in the period from May 13 to May 21, that is, on the eve of information about the speech of a senior Beijing official on bitcoin mining, increased to 11.8 minutes. During that period, the average hash rate was about 147 Eh/s, an indicator which almost to the end of the month held at a similar level (about 150 Eh/s, if we take the average data for the last seven days).

The drop in the difficulty is explained by the fact that Sichuan province (China) is currently experiencing an unusually low number of rains, which has forced local authorities to limit the provision of electricity to those types of businesses which are energy-intensive.

This has also affected bitcoin miners, who at this time of year traditionally move their equipment from the North of China to areas of Sichuan province, in anticipation of lower costs for electricity, which is generated mainly at hydroelectric power plants. A similar situation, i.e. the correlation between energy shortages in Sichuan province and a fall of more than 15% in the bitcoin mining difficulty index, has been observed four more times throughout history.

It can be stated that so far Beijing’s regulatory policy has not fundamentally changed with regard to bitcoin mining, but experts note that local entrepreneurs are still more actively looking at opportunities for their activities outside of China.