Subnostr

For those who don’t yet understand the #bitcoin difficulty adjustment, check out the below…

See it says Avg Block Time 11.7 minutes?

In order to keep the issuance of new bitcoin stable, Satoshi introduced the ‘Difficulty Adjustment’.

See where it says Next Difficulty Adjustment -1.4%?

That means that the difficulty will go down by about 1.4%, which will make it easier to mine bitcoin blocks, and this will bring the average block time back closer to ten minutes.

The difficulty adjustment occurs every 2016 blocks, which is approx every two weeks.

Tick tock next block 🧡

Thanks to nostr:npub104pdpaatsqe372lj57rrfudv0r03ynwj000mxnlzjn27x2enc72s8aa6da for his great

site https://timechainstats.com 🔥

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Discussion

₿lack Swan 2y ago

As bitcoins hash rate tends to increase more frequently than decrease, would this not lead to blocks being created at a faster rate than the issuance schedule would otherwise indicate?

Keysa - Simplest Bitcoin Edu 2y ago

Whenever the hash rate increases, and blocks start getting mined faster than a ten minute average, the difficulty increases at the next adjustment, bringing the ten-minute average back.

The dynamic difficulty adjustment is the genius that Satoshi discovered to keep the issuance stable over time.

It accounts for both hash rate increase/decrease as well as increased efficiency of new ASICS/miners.

₿lack Swan 2y ago

Yep, but if it increases 75% of a given period, and only decreases 25% of the time, the issuance will actually occur very slightly faster than projected!

Keysa - Simplest Bitcoin Edu 2y ago

If you are talking about during a specific 2016 block period, then yes.

Then when the difficulty adjusts at the end of the period, as far as I know it takes into account that previous period, along with the next one, to get as close to a 10-min average as possible.

If the hash rate were to only go up over time (which it has overall) then I see what you are saying, the blocks would be issued slightly faster overall.

Like you say, very slightly faster.. which is why no one really knows precisely when the last sats will be issued.

Also I guess we have yet to see (well we won’t be around for all of it) what could still occur to reduce hash rate, at least temporarily (like we saw with China in ‘21)…

All in all, a continuously fascinating journey 😊