Difficulty23 Feb 2026 14:25
From about 2022 to today, the difficulty rating for mining bitcoin has risen about 6–7× (from low‑20T to ~144T).
In practical terms, miners now need several times more hashing work, on average, to find a block than they did four years ago, which is why margins have compressed back to roughly 2020 profitability levels when the price is not making new highs.
So any improvements such as "260% faster" seem to have been lost in the 500–600% increase in four years in difficulty.