This series continues to translate the original white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto to plain language. The goal is to have easily shared content, and send new people directly to nostr to read it. The original content will be posted, with the plain language below.
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4. Proof-of-Work Paragraph 4
To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in running nodes over time, the proof-of-work difficulty is determined by a moving average targeting an average number of blocks per hour. If they’re generated too fast, the difficulty increases.
Plain Language
Say we're playing a game, and we want to make sure it's not too easy or too hard. The game adjusts itself based on how quickly or slowly we're playing, roughly every two weeks.
With computers, and the game we're playing, we call this adjustment "proof-of-work difficulty." We're changing the difficulty to keep things fair. We want a certain number of new game levels (blocks) to be created every hour. If we're finishing levels too quickly, the game makes it a bit tougher to slow us down and keep the rules fair. The network is set to create new blocks roughly every 10 minutes.
So, the proof-of-work difficulty is like having a game that adapts to how fast or slow we're going, making sure the rules stay the same for everyone playing.
Currently, the bitcoin network adjusts its proof-of-work difficulty every 2016 blocks, which roughly translates to about two weeks. This adjustment is designed to ensure that the average time it takes to produce a block stays close to 10 minutes.
In summary:
- Previous Blocks: The network looks at the last 2016 blocks created
- Time Calculation: It calculates how long it took to mine those 2016 blocks
- Adjustment: If it took less than two weeks, blocks were mined too quickly, difficulty increases. If it took more than two weeks, blocks were mined too slowly, difficulty decreases.
This process occurs approximately every two weeks to maintain a consistent block generation time of around 10 minutes. A powerful self-regulating system requiring no outside parties.
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