Bitcoin price prediction: difficulty climbs 5 percent on Thursday

Bitcoin trades at $80,163 on Sunday midday, 0.5 percent below the previous day (as of October 25, 11:50 a.m. CET, price data from CoinGecko). The intraday low of $79,263 is also the weakest level of the past 30 days. The number that shapes this week, however, is not on the chart but in the network itself: on Thursday, mining difficulty is expected to climb by 5.00 percent.

What is documented: difficulty has stood at 140.58 trillion since October 16, and the next adjustment falls on block 973,728 — according to mempool.space projections, that means Thursday, October 29, at around 9:51 p.m. CET. Our assessment follows further below. We regard the gap opening up between computing power and price as the most important pressure point of the coming fortnight, and we also name the counterarguments.

Where the price may head over a horizon of months is covered in our Bitcoin price prediction. This piece stays with the next two weeks and with what you can recalculate yourself until then.

The next difficulty adjustment falls on October 29

Mining difficulty is the value that determines how much computational work is needed to find a Bitcoin block. The protocol resets it every 2,016 blocks, so on average every two weeks. By Sunday midday, 66.9 percent of the current interval had been worked through, with 668 blocks still to go. Blocks in the current period arrived faster on average than the targeted ten minutes, and that is precisely what produces the expected increase of 5.00 percent. The data is public at mempool.space.

The sequence of recent adjustments shows how quickly things have moved lately. On September 5, difficulty stood at 127.45 trillion, on September 19 at 132.76 trillion, and on October 3 at a practically unchanged 132.72 trillion. October 16 then brought the jump to 140.58 trillion, a gain of 5.92 percent. If Thursday delivers the expected increase, the value will stand at roughly 147.6 trillion. That is 11.2 percent more than three weeks earlier.

This increase is not the decision of a committee but a rule in the protocol. The value changes automatically as soon as the 2,016th block of the period is found, and it knows nothing about the price. That is why difficulty rises even when the price falls.

1,075 exahash per second: 16 percent more computing power than 30 days ago

Behind difficulty sits the hashrate, meaning the total computing power devoted worldwide to finding Bitcoin blocks. It is measured in exahash per second, or EH/s, where one exahash means a quintillion attempted calculations.

On a seven-day average, the hashrate recently stood at around 1,075 EH/s. Thirty days ago it was 926 EH/s. That is an increase of 16.0 percent within a month in which the price lost 4.9 percent. The time series can be traced at mempool.space and at Blockchain.com.

New computing power does not appear overnight. Behind it stand machines ordered months ago and sites leased quarters ago. Anyone switching on today made the investment decision at a time when Bitcoin traded considerably higher. That explains why the hashrate keeps growing into a falling price instead of retreating.

How the adjustment works every 2,016 blocks

The protocol targets one block every ten minutes. If blocks arrive faster on average because more computing power is attached to the network, the next adjustment raises difficulty. If they arrive more slowly, it lowers it. In both directions, the change per period is capped at a factor of four.

The delay is what matters for understanding the coming days. Difficulty always reacts to the past, never to the present. If the hashrate rises today, an operator feels the higher hurdle only with the next adjustment. Conversely, after a price slump a mining operation works for up to two weeks against a difficulty that was set for higher revenues.

Revenue per exahash falls to around $33,600 a day

We calculated this figure ourselves, and you can follow it in two steps. The block subsidy has stood at exactly 3.125 Bitcoin since the halving in April 2024. At 144 blocks a day, that produces 450 new Bitcoin daily. At a price of $80,163, that corresponds to daily revenue of roughly $36.1 million for the entire network, transaction fees not included.

Spread across 1,075 EH/s of computing power, that works out at around $33,600 per exahash per day. Thirty days ago, at a price of $84,582 and 926 EH/s, it was roughly $41,100. Revenue per unit of computing power has therefore fallen by 18.4 percent, while operators' electricity bills have not come down over the same period.

For revenue per exahash to reach late-September levels again, Bitcoin would have to rise to around $98,200 at today's hashrate. That is not a forecast but a reverse calculation from the two figures above. The number shows how far operators' economics have moved away from the price in four weeks.

Why falling revenue forces operators to sell

Mining operations have costs in dollars or euros and income in Bitcoin. Electricity, rent, staff and loans fall due monthly; the subsidy arrives in the currency whose price is currently falling. Operators without a large reserve then sell a bigger share of current production, and under sustained pressure out of holdings as well.

The scale can be put in context. At $80,163, the 450 new Bitcoin a day correspond to roughly $36 million that can reach the market daily. Measured against exchange turnover that is modest, but it meets a market that has been recording outflows for four weeks anyway. If you are buying in this situation, it pays to know what fees you are trading at; a look at our comparison of the best crypto exchanges shows the differences.

The second channel runs through financing. When revenue per exahash falls, the machines lose value as collateral. Credit lines tighten, and some operators switch off older equipment. That would be the point at which the hashrate itself gives way and the adjustment after next lowers difficulty again. So far there is no sign of it.

The levels: $79,263 below, $87,086 above

On the downside, the first thing that counts is Sunday morning's intraday low of $79,263. It is also the 30-day low, and therefore the first level whose breach would open a new range. Below it lies the round $79,000 mark, which has not been tested so far this month.

On the upside, the intraday high of $80,949 caps the move of the past 24 hours. The bigger hurdle is the monthly high of $87,086, 7.9 percent above the current level. In between runs the 50-day line, which Bitcoin broke through from above on October 24 for the first time in 66 days, according to our analysis.

Since our Bitcoin price prediction of October 24, which described the Fed decision and the options expiry as the week's pacesetters, little has changed in the price. At $79,263, though, the intraday low sits 1.9 percent below the level of early Saturday, when we measured $80,806. The range is narrowing, not widening.

Sentiment fits that picture. Alternative.me's Fear and Greed Index stands at 54 points on October 25, in neutral territory. On October 22 it was still at 68 points, which is greed. Within three days, confidence has turned into waiting.

What argues against the miner thesis

The calculation above describes pressure; it proves no price path. Against it speaks, first, that the large listed operators have decoupled their financing from current production over recent years. An operator funded through share issues and convertible bonds does not have to sell daily.

Second, the share of newly created Bitcoin in total trading volume has been small since the 2024 halving. Selling pressure of $36 million a day disappears into the noise on a liquid trading day and becomes visible only when the demand side is weak at the same time.

Third, a rising hashrate has historically been no reliable sell signal. Computing power is a lagging quantity, and it says more about investment decisions of the past six months than about the next two weeks. Deriving a price target from it overstretches the data.

Our assessment of the week before October 29

From the newsroom's point of view, the situation is tense but has not tipped. Three documented points support that: revenue per exahash has fallen 18.4 percent in 30 days, difficulty is expected to rise another 5.00 percent on Thursday, and the intraday low of $79,263 already marks the weakest level in four weeks. These three quantities pull in the same direction.

Against it stands the fact that the hashrate keeps growing. A market in which operators are switching off in droves looks different. As long as computing power is rising, the thesis of broad selling pressure is a presumption and not an observation. The adjustment after next, in mid-November, will therefore be decisive: if difficulty falls there for the first time since the summer, the strain has genuinely reached the operators.

For the coming days that means the range between $79,263 and $80,949 is the frame in which the situation will be decided. A close below it would be the first hard signal, a day above $82,000 the first counterargument. This is expressly not a buy or sell recommendation, and a total loss remains possible with any crypto investment.

How to check your holding period before the turn of the year

For investors in Germany, October has a second side. Private disposals of crypto assets are tax-free after a holding period of one year, governed by Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act; within the year, an exemption limit of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies. Whether the rule stays in this form is politically open. We track the current state of the debate on our page on the crypto holding period.

In practice, three things count now. Look up which of your positions reach the one-year mark before the turn of the year, because the purchase date decides, not the calendar year. Second, check whether a purchase receipt exists for every position; without proof of acquisition costs, the tax office will apply an estimate if in doubt. And third, note which exchange or wallet each position sits on, because moves between addresses make attribution harder.

These three points cost half an hour and save you reconstructing everything from bank statements in the spring. They have nothing to do with the price, but plenty to do with what is left of a gain.

Mining difficulty on October 29: below $79,263 it gets tight

1. Put Thursday, October 29, at around 9:51 p.m. CET in your calendar as the date of the difficulty adjustment, and afterwards compare the actual change with the expected 5.00 percent. If it comes in lower, operators have already switched off machines. If you are building positions in this phase, it is worth looking at the fees in our comparison of tax tools and portfolio trackers beforehand, because every partial position has to be documented individually later.
2. Put the two levels of $79,263 and $80,949 into your price alerts. If the price falls below the monthly low, the tight range of recent days is resolved. Anyone holding larger amounts should then know where they sit; our hardware wallet comparison shows the differences in custody and recovery.
3. Check your trading costs before you trade in a volatile week. With narrow ranges, the fee decides the outcome more than the entry point does. The terms of the big providers are in our exchange comparison.

(As of October 25, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)