I'm trying to get my head around the difficulty setting of Bitcoin. How can I calculate how many zeros the target string needs to start with?
2 Answers
17 judging by the latest blocks published on blockchain.info: https://blockchain.info/block/0000000000000000057fcc708cf0130d95e27c5819203e9f967ac56e4df598ee
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1Thanks especially for the link to make it easy to find out the answer in the future, as well.– sarnoldJan 18, 2017 at 1:23
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2The future is now ;-) Changed to 18, blockchain.info/pt/block/… (since Feb 2017 as this block, perhps before). Nov 18, 2017 at 12:38
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An early block of Mar' 2009 (block deep 6100) have 8 zeros (see same at other explorer). Nov 18, 2017 at 14:16
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Clarifying: difficulty is a more human-friendly representation of the target. Tha target itself is not specified in terms of the amount of zeroes. This seemed to be the case with hashcash.
The more precise definition of the target is a maximum accepted number for the produced block hash. In this sense a certain hash with a certain number of leading zeroes may be accepted and another hash with the same amount of leading zeroes may not be accepted.
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Hi Jonathas, we see that the amount is growing, so, who (authority or Bitcoin-rule) define the amount? Nov 18, 2017 at 12:43
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Hum... See current difficulty and target concept, this is the reference for number of zeros (!). Nov 18, 2017 at 13:56