According to data from Bitcoin.com, the difficulty of Bitcoin mining has undergone 27 adjustments this year, with 20 increases and 7 decreases. The annual increase is approximately 74%. The largest increase in difficulty was 10.26%, which occurred on January 16; the smallest increase was only 0.12%, which occurred on August 9; the largest decrease in difficulty was 3.59%, which happened on January 3; the smallest decrease was at a rate of .49% and took place on February12th; The last adjustment of the year, also being the twenty-seventh one, took place on December24th.