Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is on pace to fall even further this weekend, making mining more profitable still.

Following a crackdown on the energy-intensive mining process in China that saw many miners relocate their machines to Texas and Kazakhstan, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty dropped by 27.9 per cent on July 3 — its biggest drop ever.

The network recalibrates roughly every two weeks to maintain an average 10-minute interval between blocks, which were still taking an average of about 11 minutes to mine the past two days

According to an online calculator, Bitcoin’s difficulty is on pace to drop by around 7.3 per cent on Sunday evening (Sydney time).

Axie Infinity hits $21

The Axie Infinity token just keeps on pumping.

AXS was trading at an all-time high of US$21.40 this afternoon, up 19.4 per cent from yesterday, just days after breaking through the US$14 level for the first time ever. It began the year at around US50c.

As Stockhead reported last week, the ERC-20 token is used to power the mobile game of the same name, which involves training, breeding and battling fantasy pets known as Axies.

The Pokemon-like creatures exist as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Axie Infinity’s Ethereum sidechain, Ronin, and rare ones have been selling for big money.


The Smooth Love Potion (SLP) token, which is given out in the game as a reward, was trading at US35.6c, up 26.8 per cent.

At current levels, the AXS token has a market cap of $US1.1 billion, making it the No. 74 crypto, while SLP has a market cap of US$193 million, making it the No. 192 crypto.

People in developing countries have found playing the game so lucrative that some have been doing it as a full-time career, especially in the Philippines.