Examine the Bitcoin First Difficulty Adjustment Post 2020 Halving

The third Bitcoin (BTC) halving has settled, and the Bitcoin network has just experienced its first difficulty adjustment post third halving. The difficulty has decreased from 16.1 trillion to 15.14 trillion, which is about a 6% downward adjustment, providing miners who have survived so far with some relief. 

Bitcoin network hash rate experienced a significant decline post-halving

It is important to recognize that the network hash rate cannot be directly observed; rather, it needs to be calculated from the average block production time and the difficulty level. Based on the average block time analysis, the Bitcoin network has experienced a significant decline post-halving with a 560-second average block time for the last 1,000 blocks before the halving and dropped to 689 seconds per 1,000 blocks after the halving — roughly a 20% increase in the average block time, indicating a 20% network hash rate that gradually vanished during the period.

Since the first difficulty adjustment of…