Ethereum’s mining difficulty has noted a significant drop over the past 24-hours, after having reached an all-time high. The Ethereum difficulty decreased to 3,430 terahashes on 2 December. This was a 9.6% fall from its all-time high of 3,794 terahashes, according to data provider, Glassnode.
Source: Twitter
The mining difficulty showed how hard it is to mine the blocks on the Ethereum blockchain and is also associated with processing transactions. The difficulty is determined by the number of active miners in the Ethereum network and an increase in miners’ computational power, which often increases the difficulty. However, the fall in difficulty indicated the falling hash power directed to the network.
As the mining difficulty reached an all-time high, the hash rate also surged to a peak. Data suggested that the hash rate reached 285 TH per second. Now that the difficulty has fallen, the hash rate has dropped to 245.19, according to 2miners
Source: 2Miners
The increasing miner revenue might have contributed to a higher difficulty and hash rate, however, as the price of Ethereum dropped, both these metrics took a hit. According to ETHUSD charts, the value of Ethereum was close to $636, when it began to trend lower. The sudden fall pushed the asset’s value down to $563. Even though the price tried to recover, it could not surpass $600 and was trading at $596.10, at the time of writing.
The fall in price and other metrics has also coincided with the Beacon chain going live. On 1 December, phase 0 was set in motion and within half an hour the market saw tremendous sell-offs taking place. Even though phase 0 is not going to making any changes in the functionality of Ethereum, the aftermath of its release indicated a level of panic. The gas price that was also seen rising at 87 Gwei, may also decrease with falling price, difficulty, and hash rate.
