Bitcoin Difficulty Adjustment Looks Set For A 5.6% Rise On Oct 16

The Bitcoin difficulty adjustment due in about eight days is on course to be an increase. Blocks since the last reset have arrived every 568 seconds on average, not the target 600. If that pace held to the end of the period, difficulty would rise by roughly 5.6% around October 16. The same block data puts implied hashrate right at one zettahash per second.

Blockstream's API entry for block 969,696, the first block of the current period, with its October 3 timestamp and difficulty.

How the Bitcoin difficulty adjustment is tracking

This period began at block 969,696 on October 3 at 07:16 UTC. The chain tip reached block 970,451 at 06:23 UTC on October 8. That is 755 blocks in just under five days, an average of 568.0 seconds. At 600 seconds the network would have needed about 5.2 days.

Blockstream's API entry for block 970,451, the tip when this was checked.

Another 1,261 blocks remain before block 971,712 triggers the reset. At the current pace that lands around 13:20 UTC on October 16. At a perfect 600 seconds it would slip to about 00:30 UTC on October 17. Luck over the next eight days will move the projection. With 755 blocks in hand the margin is a few percentage points either way.

What the hashrate numbers say

Difficulty stands at 132.7 trillion. Put that next to the 568-second average and this period works out to a little over 1,000 EH/s. A wider look at the last 2,016 blocks gives a figure just under that, near 986.

Daily readings are a different matter. Only 144 blocks go into one, and chance alone can shift the result by several percent. Two neighboring days in early October read 824 and 1,159 EH/s, which shows how loose they are.

The longer windows agree on a network sitting near one zettahash per second. The last Bitcoin difficulty adjustment barely moved the needle either. It slipped about 0.03%, from 132.757 trillion to 132.716 trillion, after a period that averaged 600.2 seconds per block.

Where a 5.6% rise would leave difficulty

Difficulty sat near 127.5 trillion through the summer. Last October it was close to 150.8 trillion, so the present level is about 12% lower. Add the projected Bitcoin difficulty adjustment and it lands near 140 trillion. That would edge past April's 139.0 trillion and still trail last year's mark by about 7%.

Miners are living off the subsidy

Fee income is thin. Sampling 12 blocks across the past day, the coinbase paid between about 0.005 and 0.035 BTC above the 3.125 BTC subsidy. The average comes to roughly 0.022 BTC, which is under 1% of block revenue. Blockstream's estimates show next-block fees near 1 sat/vB and about 0.27 sat/vB for slower targets.

At Binance's spot price of $82,596, the daily subsidy of 144 blocks pays about $37.2 million. Spread over 1,004 EH/s that is about $37 per petahash per day before fees and costs. Nothing here says what that means for any miner's margin.

Numbers come from Blockstream's public API and Binance as of October 8, 2026. The projection assumes the recent pace continues and describes block data, not a forecast for bitcoin's price.