The Bitcoin mining difficulty (BTC) has shown its greatest upward movement for more than two years after warnings about the selling pressure of the BTC price.

According to the June 17 BTC.com chain monitoring data, the latest difficulty adjustment showed an increase in difficulty of 14.95%, the highest amount since January 2018.

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Bitcoin difficulty shoots up to 15%
The increase exceeds previous automated predictions, which only a few days ago suggested an increase of about 10%.

As reported by Cointelegraph, the 15% figure almost completely reverses the negative movements of the previous two adjustments of -9.29% and -6%.

The difficulty settings are an essential part of Bitcoin’s operation. By regulating the effort and therefore the cost needed to validate the blockchain, Bitcoin „takes care of itself“ as a network, regardless of price action or miners‘ participation.

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As such, cryptomoney remains „hard“ as money, and regardless of the difficulty, its mining issue remains the same.

However, major advances in hardship have side effects for miners in terms of cost. Greater difficulty could theoretically cause miners to sell their money to protect profitability.

On Wednesday, one day after the adjustment, the amount of Bitcoin sold by the miners was roughly equal to the amount they created.

As we go to press, ByteTree data reveals that in the last 24 hours, miners mined 781 BTC and sold 739 BTC, leaving a net profit of 42 BTC.

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By comparison, the miners managed to retain 263 BTCs in the 24 hours to 12 June, before adjustment.

The hash rate echoes 2017
Along with the difficulty of recovery, the hash rate of the Bitcoin network is still above 100 EH/s after a significant recovery during the month of May.

After halving, which reduced miners‘ earnings by 50% overnight, the hash rate, a measure of miners‘ participation, fell to 90 EH/s.

Since then, bullish signals have returned and have similarities to the movement to the USD 20,000 of 2017.

„Even after the mining subsidy was halved a month ago, more hash has been added to the network than AT ANY TIME since the historic upward market movement of 2017/18,“ said portfolio manager Blockfolio on Twitter about the difficulty adjustment.

Cointelegraph has already indicated several ways in which the current state of the Bitcoin network mimics that of late 2018, immediately following the well of its subsequent bear market.