BITCOIN MINING DIFFICULTY
15.2 % THROUGH · NEXT CHANGE +2.55 %
Bitcoin wants a block every ten minutes. Nothing in the world makes that happen on its own. So every 2016 blocks the puzzle gets harder or easier, to bring the pace back.
- THROUGH THIS STRETCH
- 15.2 %
- NEXT CHANGE LOOKS LIKE
- +2.55 %
- BLOCKS LEFT
- 1,710
- IT CHANGES AT BLOCK
- 967,680
- ROUGHLY WHEN
- September 19
- DIFFICULTY NOW
- 127.5 trillion
WHAT THE DIFFICULTY IS
Mining is guessing. Machines try answers, billions every second, until one of them works. There is no shortcut and no clever way in.
The difficulty is how hard a working answer is to find. Turn it up and the same machines take longer. Turn it down and they land one sooner.
It exists for one reason: to keep blocks arriving about every ten minutes, however many machines are racing.
WHY IT CHANGES
Machines join and leave all the time. More machines and answers get found faster, so blocks come too quickly. Fewer machines and blocks come too slowly.
So every 2016 blocks, roughly every two weeks, the network looks back at how long those blocks actually took. Too fast and the difficulty goes up. Too slow and it comes down.
The next one is 1,710 blocks away, at block 967,680, roughly September 19. At the current pace it looks like +2.55 %, and that estimate keeps moving until the last block of the stretch lands.
WHO CHANGES IT
Nobody. That is the whole point.
There is no committee and no announcement. Every computer works the new difficulty out for itself, from the times already written inside the last 2016 blocks. They all start from the same blocks, so they all reach the same answer.
It was built this way so that nobody could set the difficulty. That included Satoshi.
QUESTIONS
When is the next Bitcoin difficulty adjustment?
At block 967,680, which is 1,710 blocks away, so roughly September 19.
How much will the Bitcoin difficulty change?
It looks like +2.55 % at the current pace. Treat it as provisional: the figure is worked out from how fast blocks have been arriving, so it drifts until the stretch is over.
What is the Bitcoin mining difficulty right now?
About 127.5 trillion. The number on its own means little. What matters is that it is set so all the machines in the world together find a block every ten minutes.
How often does the Bitcoin difficulty change?
Every 2016 blocks. At ten minutes a block that is two weeks, but it is a block count, so the real gap is however long those blocks take.
Who sets the Bitcoin difficulty?
Nobody sets it. Every computer calculates it from the times written inside the blocks it already holds, and they all get the same result.
What happens if a lot of miners switch off?
Blocks come more slowly until the stretch ends. Then the difficulty drops and the pace goes back towards ten minutes. It has happened before and the network kept running.
SEE IT RUNNING
The difficulty is one of the nine parts of the machine on this site: a regulator that tightens and loosens on its own, reading the clock written inside the blocks.
THE PARTS NEXT TO IT
- MININGThe race the difficulty is tuning, and what it costs.
- BLOCK HASHThe fingerprint the answer has to beat.
- BLOCKCHAINThe record those timestamps are read from.
SMALL PRINT
This page describes a public network and the rule written into it. It is not financial advice and quotes no price. The estimate of the next change comes from public Bitcoin APIs and moves as blocks arrive.