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Bitcoin saw its slowest block time in over a year since the China crypto ban. As reported by Colin Wu, the block time at Bitcoin height 759053-054 reached a rare 85 minutes, which is well above the 10-minute estimated time. This was close to the high seen in 2021. Due to the ban on Bitcoin mining in China, a block time of 100 minutes was reached in 2021.
The block time at Bitcoin height 759053 - 054 reached a rare 85 minutes, causing some transaction delays. In 2021, due to the ban on Bitcoin mining in China, the block time of 688436-437 reached 100 minutes. https://t.co/KweVuOrh7Q pic.twitter.com/hkboD2nQXL
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 17, 2022
Per the graphic posted by Wu Blockchain, the interval between the two recent blocks mined by Foundry USA and Luxor was 85 minutes. The reason for the delay remains unknown.
Block times often determine how long it takes to transfer cryptocurrencies, and Bitcoin block times are an average of 10 minutes. In 2021, China intensified its crackdown on cryptocurrency and mandated the shutdown of Bitcoin mining.
Before the crackdown, China was quickly becoming the hub of the cryptocurrency industry, giving a boost to large crypto exchanges like Binance and the largest Bitcoin mining companies. Beijing's move to banish cryptocurrency trading and mining was announced in September 2021.
Bitcoin hashrate continues to climb
As reported by U.Today, Bitcoin hashrate set a record high of 325.11 EH/s on Oct. 11, at block 758,138. The Bitcoin difficulty was thus adjusted to a new all-time high of 35.6 trillion hashes due to a rapid increase in network hash power.
Nonetheless, Bitcoin's price continues to waiver below the $20K mark in lackluster trading. At press time, Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $19,432, up 1.51% in the last 24 hours.
Alex Dovbnya
Denys Serhiichuk
U.Today Editorial Team
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin