The Bitcoin mining difficulty, the measure of how hard it is to solve the mathematical problem associated with a block, passed 80 trillion on Friday. 

The hash rate for the network, which meters the total computational power dedicated by miners, rose to 562.81 EH/s with the mining difficulty reaching 81.73 trillion — a new all-time high, according to the blockchain explorer BTC.com. With its consistent increase since January 2023, bitcoin mining difficulty is on a course to reach 100 trillion in the coming months.

With Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism, mining difficulty gauges the complexity of adding a new block to the blockchain. The higher the difficulty, the more computational power and energy a miner …