For the first time in five years, it took 2 hours for the Bitcoin network to dig a block for the first time.

According to a report by Bitcoinist on October 2, the Bitcoin network dug up a block with an unusually slow time, and it took a total of 119 minutes to dig out the block. Although the mining power of the Bitcoin network has reached a new high in the near future, this abnormal phenomenon has occurred.

Snail-4345504_1280 (Source: »

Bitcoin network has a very low probability of generating slow blocks

In the bitcoin network setting, the miner will dig up a new block every ten minutes. So far, the bitcoin network's block time has been kept for a predetermined period of time, only a small fluctuation. .

But the block with a block height of 597273 really makes the miners spend a lot of time and computing power.

After the block was released from the previous block, the miner spent 119 minutes to dig out the block with a block height of 59723319.

This situation has only occurred 10 times in the history of Bitcoin. The last time this happened was in May 2014.

Assuming that the average block time of the bitcoin network is 10 minutes, the probability of generating the block is only 0.000679%.

-Antoine Le Calvez (@khannib) September 30, 2019 It is very rare to spend a long time dug out a block. As of October 1, the bitcoin network has a hash rate of 89 trillion times per second. This means that in 119 minutes, the miners consumed a lot of electricity and computing power before they dug it out.

The next block was dug in less than a minute. Since some miners attempt to mine using probabilistic optimization, the probability of occurrence of this block should be extremely low.

There are two explanations for the reasons for the block. The first is that the miners did not reach a consensus on the block. Another explanation is that the bitcoin blockchain may have split, but the fork monitor did not detect this happening.

Bitcoin lacks emergency difficulty adjustment mechanism

In fact, other networks have also experienced excessive block times, such as Bitcoin Cash. The main reason is that there are too few miners involved in mining, and the network has not adjusted the difficulty of mining. The bitcoin network will adjust the difficulty of mining every two weeks. At present, the mining difficulty of the network is at the highest level in history.

Just before the block of the block 59723319 was dug, the Bitcoin network suddenly lost 30% of the hash rate. In addition, the Bitcoin network has reduced more than 1,400 nodes in the past three months, indicating that the decentralization of the Bitcoin network has decreased, and the potential for potential security risks in the network has increased.

The Bitcoin network has repeatedly proved that it will not easily fall into the "death of death". However, the Bitcoin code does not have a more flexible way to deal with sudden changes in mining difficulty.

So far, the mining activity of Bitcoin has risen steadily and has not seen a sharp decline.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!

Share:

Was this article helpful?

93 out of 132 found this helpful

Discover more

Blockchain

Featured | Messari Founder: Recent Frustrations and Hopes in the Industry; Innovations in the Bitcoin Technology Stack

Today's content includes: 1. Founder of Messari: the recent frustration and hope of the industry; 2.Innovation i...

Blockchain

FCoin thunders, Zhang Jian confesses that over 900 million yuan cannot be paid, and foreign exchanges have significant financial risks

Source: Finance and Economics · Chain Finance Author: Chen At about 6 pm on February 17, Zhang Jian, the founder...

Blockchain

ChainNode Live Room | Derivatives track has become an industry consensus. Bitcoin will be up to $ 20,000 in the year?

Since the beginning of this year, the trading platform has frequently acted, causing one after another "destruct...

Blockchain

Why did the mining pool business become the "sweet bun" of the exchange?

The three major domestic institutes are all involved in the mining pool business. As an exchange, how to use its own ...

Opinion

OPNX Development History Tokens soar by a hundredfold, becoming a leading bankruptcy concept?

OPNX is the most comprehensive and complete in terms of product conception in the debt trading field, but from the pe...

Blockchain

Alameda Engineer SBF stole my life savings

As an engineer at Alameda Research, my entire life savings were stolen by my former boss, Sam Bankman-Fried (known to...