BitcoinTalk

Proof-of-work difficulty increasing

22
Satoshi-only
BitcoinTalk
#1
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
We had our first automatic adjustment of the proof-of-work difficulty on 30 Dec 2009.  

The minimum difficulty is 32 zero bits, so even if only one person was running a node, the difficulty doesn't get any easier than that.  For most of last year, we were hovering below the minimum.  On 30 Dec we broke above it and the algorithm adjusted to more difficulty.  It's been getting more difficult at each adjustment since then.

The adjustment on 04 Feb took it up from 1.34 times last year's difficulty to 1.82 times more difficult than last year.  That means you generate only 55% as many coins for the same amount of work.

The difficulty adjusts proportionally to the total effort across the network.  If the number of nodes doubles, the difficulty will also double, returning the total generated to the target rate.

For those technically inclined, the proof-of-work difficulty can be seen by searching on "target:" in debug.log.  It's a 256-bit unsigned hex number, which the SHA-256 value has to be less than to successfully generate a block.  It gets adjusted every 2016 blocks, typically two weeks.  That's when it prints "GetNextWorkRequired RETARGET" in debug.log.

minimum    00000000ffff0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
30/12/2009 00000000d86a0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
11/01/2010 00000000c4280000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
25/01/2010 00000000be710000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
04/02/2010 000000008cc30000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
14/02/2010 0000000065465700000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
24/02/2010 0000000043b3e500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
08/03/2010 00000000387f6f00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
21/03/2010 0000000038137500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
01/04/2010 000000002a111500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
12/04/2010 0000000020bca700000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
21/04/2010 0000000016546f00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
04/05/2010 0000000013ec5300000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
19/05/2010 00000000159c2400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
29/05/2010 000000000f675c00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
11/06/2010 000000000eba6400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
24/06/2010 000000000d314200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
06/07/2010 000000000ae49300000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
13/07/2010 0000000005a3f400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
16/07/2010 000000000168fd00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
27/07/2010 00000000010c5a00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
05/08/2010 0000000000ba1800000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
15/08/2010 0000000000800e00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
26/08/2010 0000000000692000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

date, difficulty factor, % change
2009           1.00
30/12/2009     1.18   +18%
11/01/2010     1.31   +11%
25/01/2010     1.34    +2%
04/02/2010     1.82   +36%
14/02/2010     2.53   +39%
24/02/2010     3.78   +49%
08/03/2010     4.53   +20%
21/03/2010     4.57    +9%
01/04/2010     6.09   +33%
12/04/2010     7.82   +28%
21/04/2010    11.46   +47%
04/05/2010    12.85   +12%
19/05/2010    11.85    -8%
29/05/2010    16.62   +40%
11/06/2010    17.38    +5%
24/06/2010    19.41   +12%
06/07/2010    23.50   +21%
13/07/2010    45.38   +93%
16/07/2010   181.54  +300%
27/07/2010   244.21   +35%
05/08/2010   352.17   +44%
15/08/2010   511.77   +45%
26/08/2010   623.39   +22%
BitcoinTalk
#2
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
14/02/2010 0000000065465700000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

2009        1.00
30/12/2009  1.18   +18%
11/01/2010  1.31   +11%
25/01/2010  1.34    +2%
04/02/2010  1.82   +36%
14/02/2010  2.53   +39%

Another big jump in difficulty yesterday from 1.82 times to 2.53 times, a 39% increase since 10 days ago.  It was 10 days apart not 14 because more nodes joined and generated the 2016 blocks in less time.
BitcoinTalk
#7
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
Quote from: Suggester on February 16, 2010, 02:15:49 AM
Satoshi, I figured it will take my modern core 2 duo about 20 hours of nonstop work to create ฿50.00! With older PCs it will take forever. People like to feel that they "own" something as soon as possible, is there a way to make the generation more divisible? So say, instead of making ฿50 every 20 hours, make ฿5 every 2 hours?
I thought about that but there wasn't a practical way to do smaller increments.  The frequency of block generation is balanced between confirming transactions as fast as possible and the latency of the network.

The algorithm aims for an average of 6 blocks per hour.  If it was 5 bc and 60 per hour, there would be 10 times as many blocks and the initial block download would take 10 times as long.  It wouldn't work anyway because that would be only 1 minute average between blocks, too close to the broadcast latency when the network gets larger.
BitcoinTalk
#9
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
Quote from: Sabunir on February 16, 2010, 08:51:51 AM
. Perhaps it has to do with my connection's very high latency (2000ms or more on average)
2 seconds of latency in both directions should reduce your generation success by less than 1%.

Quote from: Sabunir on February 16, 2010, 08:51:51 AM
and/or my high packet loss (sometimes up to 10% loss)?
Probably OK, but I'm not sure.  The protocol is designed to resync to the next message, and messages get re-requested from all the other nodes you're connected to until received.  If you miss a block, it'll also keep requesting it every time another blocks comes in and it sees there's a gap.  Before the original release I did a test dropping 1 out of 4 random messages under heavy load until I could run it overnight without any nodes getting stuck.
BitcoinTalk
#12
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
The automatic adjustment happened earlier today.

24/02/2010 0000000043b3e500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

24/02/2010  3.78  +49%

I updated the first post.
BitcoinTalk
#14
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
The formula is based on the time it takes to generate 2016 blocks.  The difficulty is multiplied by 14/(actual days taken).  For instance, this time it took 9.4 days, so the calculation was 14/9.4 = 1.49.  Previous difficulty 2.53 * 1.49 = 3.78, a 49% increase.

I don't know what you're talking about accepting easier difficulties.
BitcoinTalk
#27
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
That's a good idea.  I'm not sure where exactly to fit that in, but it could certainly calculate the expected average time between blocks generated, and then people would know what to expect.

Every node and each processor has a different public key in its block, so they're guaranteed to be scanning different territory.

Whenever the 32-bit nonce starts over at 1, bnExtraNonce gets incremented, which is an arbitrary precision integer.
BitcoinTalk
#40
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
I integrated the hashmeter idea into the SVN version.  It displays khash/s in the left section of the status bar.

Two new log messages:
21/06/2010 01:23 hashmeter   2 CPUs    799 khash/s
21/06/2010 01:23 generated 50.00

grep your debug.log for "generated" to see what you've generated, and grep for "hashmeter" to see the performance.  On windows, use:
 findstr "hashmeter generated" "%appdata%\bitcoin\debug.log"

I have the hashmeter messages once an hour.  How often do you think it should be?
BitcoinTalk
#42
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
Agree.  Certainly too trivial to clutter the user's attention with.

I changed it to every 30 minutes.

If I increased it to every 10 minutes, it would still be a small enough presence in the log file.  Question is whether that would be more output than the user wants when they grep.
BitcoinTalk
#48
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
The proof-of-work difficulty is currently 45.38.  (see http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php) 

It's about to increase again in a few hours.  It's only been 3-4 days since the last increase, so I expect it will increase by the max of 4 times, or very nearly the max.  That would put it at 181.54.

The target time between adjustments is 14 days, 14/3.5 days = 4.0 times increase.
BitcoinTalk
#51
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
It adjusted to 181.54 a few minutes ago.  Typical time to get a block is about a week now.

The difficulty can adjust down as well as up.

The network should be generating close to 6 blocks per hour now.
BitcoinTalk
#54
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
Yes, about 20 hours.  (120 conf / 6 blocks per hour = 20 hours)  That's the normal length of time before you can spend it.  You know long before that that you won one.
BitcoinTalk
#57
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
Right, the difficulty adjustment is trying to keep it so the network as a whole generates an average of 6 blocks per hour.  The time for your block to mature will always be around 20 hours.

The recent adjustment put us back to close to 6 blocks per hour again.

There's a site where you can see the time between blocks, and since block 68545, it's been more like 10 minutes per block:
http://nullvoid.org/bitcoin/statistix.php
BitcoinTalk
#63
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: Proof-of-work difficulty increasing
Date:
New difficulty factor 244.213223092
+35%

I updated the first post.

date, difficulty factor, % change
2009          1.00
30/12/2009    1.18   +18%
11/01/2010    1.31   +11%
25/01/2010    1.34    +2%
04/02/2010    1.82   +36%
14/02/2010    2.53   +39%
24/02/2010    3.78   +49%
08/03/2010    4.53   +20%
21/03/2010    4.57    +9%
01/04/2010    6.09   +33%
12/04/2010    7.82   +28%
21/04/2010   11.46   +47%
04/05/2010   12.85   +12%
19/05/2010   11.85    -8%
29/05/2010   16.62   +40%
11/06/2010   17.38    +5%
24/06/2010   19.41   +12%
06/07/2010   23.50   +21%
13/07/2010   45.38   +93%
16/07/2010  181.54  +300%
27/07/2010  244.21   +35%