**[PlanB: Bitcoin Price Falls Below Mining Cost, Future Trend Depends on Difficulty Recovery]** BlockBeats News, September 17 – Renowned analyst PlanB shared a chart comparing global mining difficulty and Bitcoin price, stating that the current focus should be on waiting for Bitcoin mining difficulty to rise again. The chart shows that as of September 16, the global mining difficulty was approximately 127T, with Bitcoin's price clearly operating below the production cost range. During the 2024 to 2025 period, the two metrics are expected to rise in tandem, while in 2026, difficulty is projected to plateau and briefly decline, with price leading the downward trend. PlanB believes that at this stage, difficulty better reflects market prices compared to models like S2F and power-law, as it closely approximates miners' computational power and BTC production costs. PlanB also emphasized that this is not an immediate buy signal but rather a call to observe miners' capacity cycles. If mining difficulty increases again, it could indicate miners are ramping up operations and a stronger confirmation of the bottom. Conversely, if difficulty continues to decline, the market may still be in a deleveraging phase. [Original Link]