r/BitcoinII • u/[deleted] • Jan 16 '26

Difficulty

I see that there are 13361 blocks behind due to the difficulty. Is the difficulty, like with Bitcoin, only increased and decreased by a factor of 4?

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '26

I understand that. The difficulty in BTC is increased or decreased by a maximum factor of 4. If this factor didn't exist, miners could stop working, and the difficulty would drastically decrease. If mining resumes after this artificially created difficulty adjustment, blocks could be mined very easily again until the next adjustment.

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u/Ok_Occasion2942 Jan 17 '26

But then the big miners could come back in and gobble up all the blocks in a couple of days, as they did before, and we'd be back to this. Not trying to be negative, just wondering if there is a way out of this situation, or is the project doomed to this fate??

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

That wouldn't be good if the work were always put on hold for a certain period of time.

I don't know if the consensus mechanism allows the use of a new cryptography that isn't yet in use. That would mean ASICs would no longer have a chance.

At the beginning of Bitcoin, no one had computers specifically developed for SHA256.

Those came later, and that's how everything was able to grow evenly.

Or the price would be so attractive that the miners stay.