Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty saw a slight decrease on Saturday, after hitting a record high of 126.9 trillion on May 31 during the last adjustment period.
Currently, the mining difficulty stands at about 126.4 trillion units, according to data from Cryptoquant.
High mining difficulty, coupled with a robust network hashrate, indicates an increase in the total computing power that safeguards the Bitcoin protocol. This situation intensifies competition among miners and raises production costs.
For those involved in mining, this shift has made profitability calculations more complex, especially since miners are grappling with financial difficulties stemming from dwindling block rewards post the April 2024 halving, all while facing mounting operational costs.
Despite these challenges, some publicly traded mining companies remain optimistic and are looking to expand. For instance, Mara has announced plans to ramp up its BTC output by 35% amid record hashrates and ongoing market fluctuations.
On April 5, Bitcoin’s network hashrate surpassed 1 exahash per second (EH/s), marking a significant achievement for decentralized currency protocols.
In May, Mara reported mining 950 Bitcoins and boosting its corporate reserves to 49,179 BTC, positioning it among the largest holders of Bitcoin globally.
Mara’s CFO, Salman Khan, mentioned in a post on June 3 that while the company had a banner production month, none of the mined Bitcoin was sold.
Another company, CleanSpark, focuses on mining Bitcoin using clean energy. In May 2025, it increased its BTC production by 9%, mining a total of 694 Bitcoins and raising its reserves to 12,502 BTC.
According to CleanSpark’s president and CEO, Zack Bradford, they also enhanced their month-end hashrate to 45.6 EH/s, a 7.5% increase.
The trend of mining companies accumulating Bitcoin as a financial asset marks a notable shift from the traditional approach of selling mined coins to finance operations.
