Mining difficulty refers to the amount of computational power required to mine a block on a cryptocurrency network
It takes a lot of processing power to solve the complicated mathematical problems that are a part of the mining process
When more miners join the network, the competition to solve these problems becomes more intense, and the mining difficulty increases
The mining difficulty is adjusted regularly to maintain a steady rate of block creation, typically every two weeks for Bitcoin
Mining difficulty is directly tied to the value of a cryptocurrency because it is a measure of how secure the network is
A high mining difficulty indicates that there are many miners competing to validate transactions, which makes it more difficult for an attacker to launch a 51% attack
A 51% attack is when a single entity controls more than 50% of the network’s computing power
which can allow them to manipulate transactions and double-spend its cryptocurrency