I seem to recall, long ago, being told that difficulty couldn't change more than a certain amount at each retarget, but I can't seem to find what that factor is (or even confirmation that such a factor exists) no matter how hard I google. Does such a factor exist and if so what is its value?
asked Jun 22, 2012 at 23:49
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
The difficulty never changes by more than a factor of 4 (except for in a special case that only applies on testnet).
The code that enforces this is here.
answered Jun 23, 2012 at 1:25
Well doesn't that figure, the moment I ask the question my google-fu kicks in.
This wiki article states:
A single retarget never changes the target by more than a factor of 4 either way to prevent large changes in difficulty.
answered Jun 22, 2012 at 23:51
-
-
Yeah, I seriously think there's something about the act of phrasing a question for SE that activates some hidden bit of gray matter and creates superior search terms. It's not so annoying when it's an hour later, this one was mere seconds :P Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 0:13
-
1
-
Interesting that the article would consider a change from the currently difficult of 1,726,567 to either 5,000,000 or 500,000 as not being a large change... I guess it's considering it from a logarithmic perspective? Commented Jun 23, 2012 at 1:03