Bitcoin’s projected difficulty cut would still leave older S19 rigs short at 5-cent power

Bitcoin miners could earn about 7% more per unit of computing power if a projected difficulty cut materializes, but the relief would leave two older S19 variants needing electricity near 4 cents per kilowatt-hour just to cover machine power.Hashrate Index’s November 9 snapshot, dated 18:00 UTC, projected a 6.5% difficulty reduction around November 13. The mining data platform put current difficulty at 148.36 trillion and spot hashprice at $31.89 per petahash per second per day. Hashprice measures expected daily revenue from a unit of mining capacity, before expenses.With Bitcoin’s price, block subsidy and average transaction fees per block unchanged, that projected cut would lift hashprice to about $34.11. It would improve the electricity cushion for miners still operating, while leaving a large gap between older equipment and a more efficient S21.Lower difficulty increases the probability that a given amount of computing work earns a block reward. Expected revenue per unit of work therefore moves inversely with difficulty when the value of rewards stays fixed.The scenario calculation divides $31.89 by 0.935, the share of difficulty remaining after a 6.5% reduction. That produces a...