Bitcoin’s next difficulty rise could leave some rigs earning less than their power bill

Bitcoin miners face a projected 5.68% difficulty increase around Oct. 16, putting equipment with thin electricity cushions under pressure. If Bitcoin's price, block subsidy and average fees per block stay unchanged, expected revenue per unit of computing power would fall 5.37%.Startmining's network dashboard, captured at 07:02 UTC on Oct. 14, put difficulty at 132.72 trillion and hashprice at $39.77 per PH/day. Hashprice measures expected daily revenue from one petahash per second of computing power, before expenses.For illustrative equipment using 20 joules per terahash and paying 8 cents per kWh, electricity costs $38.40 daily per PH/s. Its $1.37 cushion at the Oct. 14 hashprice becomes an approximately $0.77 power shortfall under the projected retarget with those other inputs unchanged.That reading showed 347 blocks remaining until the adjustment at block 971,712. Bitcoin recalibrates difficulty every 2,016 blocks to target a ten-minute average block interval. Oct. 16 remains an estimated date, and the projected increase can move as more blocks arrive.Recent readings have hovered near $40. CryptoSlate reported on Oct. 9 that Hashrate Index hashprice had briefly exceeded $40 befo...