Bitcoin's mining difficulty — a metric for the ease by which miners can create new transaction blocks on the network – fell on Thursday.

The difficulty dropped to 13.7 trillion at block 633,024. The fall represented the second-biggest move of its kind for 2020, and the fourth such decline since the start of the year.

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Source: BTC.com[/caption]

The largest difficulty drop for the year occurred on March 26, when the difficulty fell 15.9%.

Thursday's development follows a 6% fall, which took place on May 20. That particular difficulty reduction was the first to occur after the bitcoin block reward halving, which saw the per-block subsidy drop from 12.5 BTC per block to 6.25.

As The Block's Celia Wan previously reported, the post-halving environment presents challenges for some miners, especially those that are overleveraged or rely chiefly on inefficient equipment. A difficulty reduction is a signal that miners have left the network, suggesting that the expected exit for some poorly-performing is taking place.

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