Bitcoin Average Block Time Surges to 13 Minutes for the First Time Since 2018

Recent data indicates that the amount of time a Bitcoin transaction takes to process has increased to its highest since November 2018. The Block time for the past few days has been recorded at more than 13 minutes.

This increase in block time indicates that transactions on the Bitcoin Network take longer to propagate from the sender to the receiver of the funds. The increase in block time, however, did not affect just Bitcoin as most of the other similar cryptocurrencies are experiencing the same tendencies as well.

The increased block time in 2018 was caused by the sharp decline in the price of Bitcoin around that time. Experts say the current increase in block time in the Bitcoin Network is associated with the recent 50 percent drop in the price of Bitcoin. However, no one is completely sure about the cause of the recent hike in Bitcoin Network transaction processing time.

On the other hand, with Bitcoin Hashrate following a downward trend, miners are getting lesser and lesser profits in their endeavours. The network's Hashrate fell by some 40 percent this month alone.

Miners Going Bankrupt and out of Business

The constantly reducing Hashrate is forcing miners out of business with a handful of them going bankrupt. More so smaller miners with limited capital and hashing power are affected most from this phenomenon.

On the other hand Bitcoin price steadily increased regaining a significant percent of the values it recently lost. At the time of this writing, the cryptocurrency was trading at $6,430 after increasing by about 8.5 percent within the last 24 hours alone. 

Macroeconomic experts say that the real test of Bitcoin is still ahead as coronavirus is still raging across borders like wildfire. World markets and stocks are shuttering and expected to remain in a detouring state for months. Some experts say this is the time for cryptocurrencies to shine.