Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Jumps Nearly 6% Twice in a Row | Why Miners Aren’t Bearish | Oct. 29, 2026

Mike Schmidt, who funds core developers through Brink and runs the Bitcoin Security Consortium's quantum work, explains why Bitcoin Core skipped version 32 for 32.1 after an AI scanner caught a medium-severity bug, and why the BIP110 fight turned on the difference between consensus and policy. TC reads the day's difficulty adjustment, set to jump close to 6% for the second time in two weeks, as proof miners are not bearish. Wicked explains why he is leaving multisig behind now that EntropyLab can verify a hardware wallet before it signs. Dave Weisberger argues AI is about to expose every crack in digital finance, passkeys or not.

Loren and Terence host Bitcoin Today live on X, weekdays at 8:30 AM PT.

X: @lorenhodl

Chapters:

0:00:00.00 Opening banter, Mike joins the stage

0:01:25.56 $17.7M says Bitcoin never tops its high

0:02:20.48 Difficulty adjustment day, near 6%

0:04:07.02 TC: miners are not bearish at all

0:05:01.32 Public miners exit to AI, solo miners rise

0:08:37.46 Natalie asks: are difficulty highs bullish?

0:10:53.08 Water heaters are mining Bitcoin now

0:11:34.90 Meet Mike Schmidt, Core's inside guy

0:13:01.00 Mike: Optech, Brink, quantum break-glass

0:14:52.30 Quantum has two fronts: inform and fund

0:15:49.06 Lorenzo: quantum FUD cries sky is falling

0:17:24.40 FUD recycles: quantum, AI, wallet hacks

0:19:18.42 One fake phone call stole 185 Bitcoin

0:19:48.28 Terence: guard every account you own

0:21:11.54 Dave: send a test transaction first

0:23:46.06 Dave: AI shows all the cracks in security

0:26:50.14 Dave: TradFi only talks about AI now

0:28:31.56 Mike: two levers, FOMO and a scary event

0:30:26.88 Mr HODL: AI pays its bills in dollars

0:31:44.08 Terence: nobody wants to spend Bitcoin

0:33:05.46 What is big Bitcoin?

0:34:22.04 Mike: the donors are not pulling strings

0:37:23.82 Asanoha: big Bitcoin is real, like pharma

0:39:28.02 Lorenzo presses Asanoha on BIP110

0:41:01.26 Mike: never give the consortium one voice

0:43:38.60 Lorenzo: has your BIP110 view changed?

0:47:00.22 Asanoha: 715 Core fixes make better money

0:50:05.94 Consensus is not policy, Taproot was last

0:51:01.40 Mike: permissionless means users you dislike

0:56:23.96 Lorenzo: the mudslinging was the saddest part

0:59:04.45 TC: use it daily, it just works

1:01:27.66 Mike: misunderstanding fueled the attacks

1:03:47.14 Mike: fight about quantum, but fight better

1:05:45.28 Timechain Art Magazine opens pre-orders

1:07:02.88 Core skipped 32: an LLM found the bug

1:13:48.74 Dom drops a vibe-coded project

1:14:23.82 Watch Duty and the fire map tangent

1:18:02.74 Wicked: the hack made me redo my setup

1:22:52.78 Multisig was a stopgap all along

1:29:08.54 Import the WIF, not the whole seed

1:31:58.30 Mr HODL: a WIF in a wallet is hot

1:34:51.80 Seed words physical, wallet.dat digital

1:37:17.18 Dice rolls changed the words live

1:40:13.18 Terence: most people need a 2-of-3

1:46:11.52 Two companies can hold two keys

1:47:38.30 EntropyLab checks the PSBT for you

1:52:50.72 Mr HODL: go play with it, offline

1:53:17.10 Around the horn, closing the show

Segment: https://youtu.be/L7GMwS2ySK4