Bitcoin mining difficulty is on track for a rise of almost 5 percent on Thursday as hashrate holds near 1,075 EH/s

Bitcoin mining is about to get harder again. The network's next difficulty adjustment, at block 973,728, is estimated for Thursday, October 29, with an increase of about 4.7 percent, according to mempool.space data on Sunday morning, which showed 706 blocks left in the current period. CryptoTicker, citing the same source earlier on Sunday, put the rise at 5 percent.

Difficulty sets how much computing work it takes to find a block, and it resets every 2,016 blocks so blocks keep arriving about every 10 minutes. It has stood at 140.58 trillion since October 16, CryptoTicker said, while the seven-day average hashrate has climbed to about 1,075 EH/s, 16 percent above 30 days earlier.

A higher difficulty means each machine earns a smaller share of new bitcoin, at a time when the price has slipped to around $80,000.

What to watch: the final figure on Thursday, which can still shift as blocks arrive faster or slower than average.