What is the difficulty of Bitcoin mining now? The natural limitation of the production of cryptocoins What is the current complexity of bitcoin

Bitcoin has been criticized by many for its imperfection, which is why a large number of alternative cryptocurrencies have appeared, but none of them has been able to surpass the founder of the cryptocurrency movement at the present time. Bitcoin differs from paper money in many ways, the “complexity” indicator is one of them.

The bitcoin cryptocurrency algorithm was designed with inflation protection and there are several regulators for this, one of which is the complexity of the bitcoin network. Difficulty regulates the issuance of bitcoin - that is, the speed of "release" of the currency. Difficulty is used in such a way that the extraction of one block takes approximately the same time, regardless of the number and power of miners. The bitcoin algorithm changes the complexity of the network approximately every two weeks - the recalculation is focused on the block calculation time of about 10 minutes. Difficulty changes after calculating 2016 mined blocks, now it takes even a little less than two weeks - for example, over the past two months, the complexity has increased 5 times.

Such changes help to avoid depreciation of the currency and work to increase the BTC rate.

To optimize the process of finding blocks, miners are combined into pools, where the mined bitcoins are divided in proportion to the contribution of the capacities of each miner. It became almost impossible to get a block alone. About pools of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will be written in one of our articles.

Increasing Bitcoin Difficulty

Bitcoin occupies a leading position on the cryptocurrency Olympus, and therefore interest in it only grows over time. This means that more and more miners are engaged in bitcoin mining and mining power is constantly increasing. And since the complexity directly depends on these indicators, it also rises regularly. The increase in complexity occurs in leaps, about once every two weeks.

Analysts do not predict significant changes in the growth rate of bitcoin complexity at the present time, which means that it is possible to build approximate calculations of the profitability of mining equipment quite accurately. It is difficult at this stage to say whether such a mechanism is good for the currency, many argue about this. But as you can see, the bitcoin rate is still high, the development of infrastructure is accelerating — therefore, if there are any prerequisites for the ill-conceived algorithm, they are not so critical.

bitcoin difficulty chart

On the website blockchain.info, which is very useful for both miners and analysts of the bitcoin market, you can see graphs of changes in the complexity of bitcoin throughout its existence. Here is a small selection of charts.

For comparison, here is a graph of changes in the power of mining equipment over the past year. And here it is just possible to trace a direct relationship between the growth in network power and the growth in the complexity of bitcoin.

The end of 2013 was marked by a tremendous increase in interest in bitcoin, the media started talking about it just at that time - many people discovered cryptocurrency and invested in the development of network capacity, after which the complexity of the entire network began to steadily increase. The growth of the bitcoin rate was also not long in coming.

The complexity of the bitcoin network

Many public resources offer information about network statistics, including information on complexity. The data is constantly updated. The complexity of the Bitcoin network is constantly growing, but unlike the course, the change in complexity is much slower, about once every two weeks.

bitcoin statistics

  • Blocks mined150.00
  • Time between blocks9.60 (minutes)
  • Bitcoin mined3,750 BTC
  • Total Mining Fees11.40343792 BTC
  • Number of transactions63268
  • Total Output Volume583,912.81838823 BTC
  • Estimated transaction volume71,547.67221512 BTC
  • Estimated Transaction Volume (USD)40,739,244.56 USD

General overview of the market

  • Market price$569.40 USD (weighted)
  • Trading volume$3,845,586.09 USD
  • Trading volume6,753.75 BTC

Mining cost

  • Miners' total income$2,141,513.40
  • % Earned from Transaction Fees0.30%
  • % of transaction volume5.26%
  • Transaction price$33.85

Network complexity and power

  • Difficulty10,455,720,138.48
  • Hashing power77,963,500.09 GH/s

The table shows an example of statistical information, it is not relevant at the moment and is not updated, be careful not to make calculations based on it - use third-party resources.

Bitcoin Difficulty Calculation

As already mentioned, about once every two weeks, there is a new calculation of the complexity of bitcoin. To do this, the total number of blocks mined over the time since the last difficulty recalculation is calculated and compared with the desired time - 1 block in 10 minutes. As a result, with an increase in the number of blocks, the complexity of the network also increases, when there are few blocks, the complexity decreases. The bitcoin algorithm adjusts to changes in the number of users, both up and down.

The change in difficulty in the Bitcoin network occurs every 2016 blocks. It can be calculated as follows:

difficulty = difficulty_1_target / current_target

where difficulty is the difficulty and target is a 256 bit number.

Difficulty_1_target can take on various values. Traditionally, this is a hash, the first 32 bits of which are 0, the rest are ones (this is also called pdiff or pool difficulty). The Bitcoin protocol represents the target as a floating point type with limited precision. Based on this data, Bitcoin client applications calculate difficulty. In fact, the difficulty for the current 2016 blocks is such that the previous 2016 blocks would have been mined in 10 minutes each.

Cryptocurrency mining was considered one of the best ways to make money in 2013–2017. At the moment, the method cannot be called profitable, and not only because of the depreciation of the majority. The main reason for the decrease in profits is that the difficulty of mining increases as the power of the equipment increases and the amount of remaining cryptocurrency decreases.

A feature of any mined currency is deflation due to the limited number of all coins. There cannot be more than 21,000,000 bitcoins, so every 10 minutes only 12.5 BTC is credited to the accounts of all miners in the world. In 2012, the community of Bitcoin miners received 25 coins for 10 minutes of work, and by 2020 the current value will be halved to 6.25.

A parameter called cryptocurrency mining difficulty indicates how difficult it will be to solve the problem that generates the block.

At certain intervals, its value is recalculated to compensate for the increased number of participants and hashrate over this period. For mining, the difficulty of mining changes after the creation of 2016 blocks or 1 time in 14.3 days. If a similar amount of data is received faster than in 2 weeks, the indicator increases - it becomes more difficult to mine cryptocurrency with the same equipment power. The frequency of growth in the complexity of mining Ethereum is every 1000 blocks.

It is difficult to predict further developments in the cryptocurrency market in 2018 and 2019. It is not easy to make predictions about the difficulty of mining even the most popular coins, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. According to current trends, the labor intensity of BTC mining is increasing by about 5% every 2 weeks, and by the end of the year we can expect a figure of 8-10 TH/s. This complicates the mining process even for owners of powerful equipment. Only users whose overall equipment performance reaches several tens or even hundreds of Th/s will continue to mine. Miners with less farm power should switch to more profitable cryptocurrencies.


In the near future, we should expect the emergence of new mining devices, the performance of which will increase tenfold with a relatively small increase in power consumption. This will increase the payback of coins, but the new technique is unlikely to become immediately available to ordinary users. Bitcoin mining will be carried out by large corporations with significant advantages.

For a miner who is just starting to work or has been participating in this process for a long time, 2019 has the following features:

  1. Buying expensive equipment for mining currencies with high difficulty. Such a strategy half a year ago made it possible to return the invested funds within 6-12 months, in the fall the payback period increased to 2-3 years, depending on the performance of the devices used for mining.
  2. Building or buying farms based on graphics cards or mining with computers that have powerful discrete video processors. Both options pay off better when choosing Ethereum.
  3. Transition to new coins. The step is risky, but it provides miners with prospects for making good profits, however, only if the rate of the chosen cryptocurrency rises.


Another promising option for a miner is not only to mine electronic currency by mining, but also to invest in the purchase of coins. To do this, you should use the services or exchanges. To find out which of the options will be more profitable, it will help to monitor the indicators of mining difficulty, hashrates and exchange rates.

It is worth considering other factors that affect the profitability of a business, including the possibility of using Bitcoins to pay for purchases on the Web or an increase in electricity prices.

Mining is a process aimed at creating new blocks of the blockchain chain, as well as recording transactions. All computing operations are carried out by computers connected to the system via the Internet. For the work done, each miner receives payment in the form of coins of the internal cryptocurrency. The amount of remuneration directly depends on how many transactions were processed using a PC or special equipment.

Cryptocurrency has many differences from fiat money, one of which is limited emission. This means that the total number of mined coins is strictly limited. For example, a software code number written in the Bitcoin system will only generate 21 million crypto coins. Reproduction of new bitcoins will cease in 2045. Despite the enormous computing power aimed at mining this coin, only 12.5 Bitcoins appear every ten minutes, which are fairly distributed among all participants in the process.

In order for the emission to remain stable regardless of the number of crypto miners, which are increasing daily, the developers took care of automatically setting the mining difficulty.

Mining difficulty is data that reflects how difficult it is to calculate a mathematical problem, the correct answer of which is the cryptographic signature assigned to the block. It is for the solution of such algorithms that a reward is provided. After a certain time interval specified in the platform settings, the difficulty is automatically recalculated. For example, the Bitcoin system performs a similar analysis every 2016 blocks, which take approximately 14 days to mine.

Due to the presence of the program code, the difficulty settings are changed in such a way that the search for a new block takes about ten minutes, regardless of the hashrate. Difficulty may increase if less than 14 days have been spent on finding and processing the last blocks. This indicates that the total computing power dedicated to the mining of this cryptocurrency has increased. Conversely, the reason for the decrease in complexity will be a significant increase in the search time for 2016 blocks.

Where to find up-to-date information on mining difficulty

Mining difficulty is a dynamic indicator. This means that the information changes periodically. The computing power of the equipment involved in the process of mining cryptocurrencies is increasing daily, which is reflected in the complexity of the process itself. Up-to-date data on the complexity of mining can be found on the official websites of cryptocurrencies, as well as on aggregator resources:

  • https://www.coinwarz.com/charts/difficulty-charts
  • https://bitinfocharts.com/ru

Here, information is collected both on the complexity of mining, and on the cost, hashrate, capitalization, profitability of the cryptocurrency, as well as the number of transactions carried out.

Mining difficulty: pros and cons


The income of each crypto miner directly depends on the difficulty of mining the chosen currency. The amount of remuneration is inversely proportional to the complexity of the network in which the computing power of the equipment is involved. If mining difficulty increases by 10%, then the number of mined coins decreases by 10%.

For example, the Antminer S7 ASIC device, which is popular among miners, in July 2017 brought a daily profit of 0.002 BTC. However, the continuous increase in the complexity of the Bitcoin network led to the fact that four months later, the profitability of this equipment decreased by 56%.

Despite the constant increase in the complexity of mining, the process remains attractive to potential investors. After all, losses in the volume of mined cryptocurrencies are fully compensated by the rapid growth of the exchange rate. This is clearly seen in the example of bitcoin, which in July 2017 was trading within $2,400, and in December its value exceeded $10,000. Consequently, the fiat income of miners has increased significantly, despite the fact that cryptocurrency mining has decreased significantly.

The growth in the complexity of the cryptocurrency mining process is affected by the total amount of computing power involved within the network. The higher the competition, the less time it takes to find and process a new block.

But high competition can provoke both an increase in the complexity of mining and its fall. A similar phenomenon was observed inside the Bitcoin network, which in August 2017 showed a sharp decrease in complexity. The vast majority of experts attribute this to the fact that a significant part of the miners have directed the computing power of their equipment to the extraction of other promising altcoins.

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The increase in the complexity of Bitcoin mining is a fact that negatively affects the amount of earnings in the production of cryptocurrency and forces you to buy more expensive equipment to obtain new blocks. Many members of the crypto network “give up” and switch to mining more “younger” coins, which have low complexity and a relatively high exchange rate. But is it worth taking such a step? Below we will consider what is the reason for the change in difficulty during the year? How often does the increase or decrease occur? How fast is this network parameter growing? These and other questions will be considered in the article.

What is the growth of Bitcoin mining difficulty - theory

The process of mining virtual coins is a set of measures aimed at finding the hash of the next block in the cryptocurrency network by performing mathematical operations using special equipment. The role of the latter can be performed by processors (graphic and central), asics, FPGA chips and even a hard drive. Depending on the chosen technique, the speed of performing mathematical operations, as well as the efficiency of earning virtual coins, also change.

The mining of Bitcoin cryptocurrency is the task of miners who give the available power to the network and receive a reward. The size of the latter changes every 4 years. If at the time of the appearance of Bitcoin virtual coins (in 2009) the premium was 50 BTC, in 2012 the parameter halved (to 25 Bitcoins), and in 2016 it doubled to 12.5 Bitcoins. The next decrease will occur according to the schedule in 2020, when 6.25 coins will be issued per mined block.

A feature of most cryptocurrencies in circulation is a deflationary structure. This means that the maximum number of coins is limited at the stage of creating virtual money. In the case of Bitcoin, this number is limited to 21 million coins. As of May 4, 2012, 17,014,400 coins have been mined. According to experts, the last BTC will be received by 2140 (while maintaining the current intensity).

In order to prevent the acceleration of the mining process, Satoshi Nakamoto set a rule that implies the complication of Bitcoin mining with a certain frequency (once every 2016 blocks). The term "complexity" itself hides the amount of mathematical operations required to obtain the next element of the blockchain. In other words, the larger the mentioned parameter, the more difficult it is for the miner to solve the hash and the more powerful equipment will have to be used to work.

Against the backdrop of a decrease in remuneration (this was mentioned above) and an increase in the labor intensity of Bitcoin mining, profitability is also falling. In order to stay afloat and keep profits at a high level, network members improve mining farms or connect to cloud services.

The increase in the difficulty of mining Bitcoins per month


Bitcoin network difficulty graph


As of May 4, 2018, the labor intensity parameter reached 4.022 TX/s. But it was not always so. At the start of the appearance of a virtual coin, only the creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, was engaged in its mining. For example, in July 2009 this figure was 1 Hash per second. In 2010, more and more miners are showing interest in cryptocurrency mining, which has led to an increase in the complexity of Bitcoin mining. Already by 2011, this figure had risen to the level of 14.48 KH / s.

Over the years, Bitcoin has grown in popularity. Judging by the difficulty graph, by January 2012, the indicator had crossed the mark of 1 MH/s. This means that in just 3 years the parameter has increased by more than a million times.

Further more. In the period from 2012 to September 2103, the difficulty did not exceed the mark of 100 MH / s, after which there was another jump. Already in January 2014, the figure reached 1.41 GH/s. During the year, the parameter increased another 40 times, and in January 2016 it amounted to 103 GH/s. Further growth slowed down, and during the year the complexity increased only three times. But the main jump took place in 2017, because by the end of the year the mark of 1.9 TX / s was “broken through”. Further, in just 4 months of 2018, the indicator more than doubled. Experts are sure that at such a pace, miners may be left without work.

Many are interested in how often there is an increase in the complexity of Bitcoin mining per month. To answer the question, it is important to know the nuances of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency network. Satoshi Nakamoto found that one block is mined within 10 minutes (with a small margin of error). Difficulty is reviewed every 2016 blocks, which take about two weeks to mine. This means that the parameter of interest changes twice during the month. In the direction of decreasing or increasing - this already depends on the trends that have developed in the network itself.

To search for a hash, the latter must have a size smaller than the target (this feature is inherent in the PoW algorithm). The hash itself is a random number ranging from zero to 2*256-1. If the miner works independently, the calculation of the time to receive the next block is as follows - difficulty * 2 * 32 / hashrate. The numerator indicates the current parameter (at the time of calculation), the denominator indicates the performance of the equipment used by the miner. After simple calculations, it is possible to see the time it takes to find the required hash (block mining).

Knowing how it increases and having a graph of changes in this parameter in front of one’s eyes, it is easier for a network member to plan the profitability of virtual currency mining not only for the next 1-2 months, but also for a year ahead. We must not forget about another important parameter - the market price, which also affects the final income of the miner.

How is the complexity of Bitcoin mining growing, what are the reasons and what does this parameter affect?


It is worth considering that there is no strict cyclicity in changing the complexity. The time to mine 2016 blocks varies widely, so the number of changes during the month may be greater. Miners who have been earning money by mining virtual coins for a long time know this feature. They also understand that other parameters, such as the premium for the next block, the type of pool, the market price, and other factors, also affect the amount of profit.

To answer the question of how often the difficulty of Bitcoin mining changes, just look at the graph. So, since the beginning of 2018, this figure has changed 9 times. If we take into account that on May 4, 2018, 17.5 weeks have passed since the beginning of January, the change occurs on average every 1.94 weeks (that is, about 2 weeks, which were mentioned above). Given that the next jump occurred on April 28, the next increase can be expected by May 11-12, 2018.

Why is complexity increasing?

The reasons for the increase in the complexity of mining Bitcoin include:

  1. The development of technology and the emergence of more productive ASIC miners. The first changes in the cryptocurrency network became noticeable in 2014, when miners got ASICs at their disposal - special equipment capable of performing a large number of similar tasks aimed at finding the hash of interest. Unlike video cards, they have a higher hash rate. With the advent of ASIC miners, it began to take less time to mine 2016 blocks, to which the system reacted by increasing the complexity to maintain balance (mining one block for 10 minutes). For example, if the hashrate of one video card is measured in MX / sec, a modern ASIC gives a performance of 8-10 TH / s or more. Against this background, GPUs and farms on video cards quickly lost their relevance. In 2018, the race continues. Manufacturers are releasing more and more powerful devices to the market, and the cryptocurrency network is responding to this with another increase in complexity.
  2. Increasing popularity of Bitcoin. We must not forget about another factor that made Bitcoin popular - the increase in the exchange rate. Back in early January 2017, the cost of BTC barely reached $960 per coin, and in December of the same year, the rate jumped to $20,000. Against this background, tens of thousands of miners rushed to invest and mine cryptocurrencies. Generally speaking, the process of influx of network participants who want to mine cryptocurrency has not stopped since 2010. The more people switch to Bitcoin mining, the higher the total capacity of the equipment in the network, the faster the blocks are mined and the more actively the complexity grows. The same pattern as mentioned above can be traced here.
  3. Profitability of investments in cryptocurrency. The growth in the value of Bitcoin attracts many market players who are looking for short-term and long-term investments.
  4. Transferring power from other cryptocurrencies. Many miners, having become disillusioned with the extraction of other coins, switch to Bitcoin mining. The results of such a process have already been mentioned above - the total hash rate increases and the cryptocurrency network is forced to respond to this.
  5. Other factors. We must not forget that the BTC cryptocurrency is dependent on the moods that take place in society, for example, on the cryptocurrency sector as a whole.
The network reacts to the factors discussed above, which inevitably affects the participants in the network. Knowing when the next complication of Bitcoin mining, you can predict future profits and determine the change in income in the next time period. At the same time, a growth trend can be traced. For example, the last increase occurred on April 28, and the difficulty increased by 4.7 percent. On average, the parameter grows in the range from 4 to 8 percent.

From a technical point of view, the indicator under consideration depends on two main factors:

  1. The total hashrate in the network, that is, the total amount of equipment capacity of all miners.
  2. The time period that was spent calculating the hashes of the past 2016 blocks.
In other words, it doesn’t matter how many people are involved in the mining of BTC cryptocurrency, and what capacities are involved in this process. The parameter set by Satoshi Nakamoto remains unchanged - about 10 minutes per block. If the creation of the next 2016 elements due to a sharp increase in power took a longer time period, the system reacts and complicates the task for the miners. As a result, as the number of farms producing virtual money increases, so does the difficulty.

What is the dependency?

It is worth considering that there is a direct relationship between the indicator under consideration and the miner's income. In the case of an increase in complexity by 15–20%, the profitability of mining the cryptocurrency of a network member falls (by approximately the same percentage). This feature is important to consider when buying expensive equipment.

With that said, here are two important rules:

  • An increase in the number of miners and an increase in the total hash leads to an acceleration in production. As a result, more mathematical operations are required to perform calculations and obtain blocks.
  • A decrease in the hashrate leads to the opposite situation - the rate of formation of 2016 blocks decreases. As a result, the labor intensity of mining the next "batch" falls, and there is a decrease in capacity. Such situations have happened before, but they were short-lived.
The Bitcoin mining algorithm is complicated for the average user. As a rule, calculators that help determine profitability, as well as other services, automatically calculate this indicator, which simplifies the task for other network participants. At the same time, the complexity of calculations is a value that changes over time and depends on fluctuations in the performance of the equipment used in the cryptocurrency network. As the hashrate goes up, so does the difficulty.

What can the complication of Bitcoin mining lead to?

The further fate of Bitcoin mining is difficult to predict. According to current trends, the labor intensity of mining increases by 5-8 percent every 2 weeks. This means that by the end of 2018, the difficulty rate may reach 8–10 TH/s. In this state of affairs, many miners will face the difficulty of mining a virtual coin. In particular, many ASICs that previously brought high income will lose their relevance.

In such a situation, miners will have two ways - to abandon Bitcoin mining in favor of another cryptocurrency or continue to invest in the purchase of more powerful equipment. If the first option is chosen, the total amount of hashes in the network will decrease, which will lead to a decrease in the laboriousness of mining virtual coins. In the second situation, the complexity will continue to grow.

In addition, by 2140, all cryptocurrencies will be mined and miners will not be able to profit from creating blocks. Of the payments, only the commission will remain, which is paid to network participants for conducting transactions. Different scenarios for the development of events are also possible here - from a change in the algorithm of the Bitcoin network to a complete collapse of the cryptocurrency.

At the same time, technology does not stand still. In the near future, a breakthrough may occur, which will lead to the emergence of even more powerful miners with a performance dozens of times higher than current figures. The downside is that such equipment will not be available to ordinary users, and Bitcoin mining will pass into the hands of large corporations. As for ordinary users, they will be forced to switch to mining other cryptocurrencies.

The mistake of many is haste. They do not pay attention to the fact that the difficulty of mining Bitcoin is growing, and do not take into account current market trends. Network members blindly buy expensive equipment (ASIC miners) in the hope of getting their “piece of the pie”. Indeed, based on the calculations for May 4, 2018, the payback period for ASICs is on average from 6 to 12 months. With the growth of complexity, the period for covering the costs of purchasing equipment, as well as paying for electricity, will be postponed.

Not surprisingly, many miners are switching to Ethereum or Monero, which can still be mined using video cards, rather than expensive ASICs. In addition, many people prefer GPU farms, which are inefficient for mining Bitcoins, but are easily reconfigured for mining other virtual coins. In addition, network members are investing in new coins that are just starting to grow. Such a step is risky, but it can justify itself in the future (in case of growth).

At the same time, it is not necessary to refuse investments in Bitcoin because of the high cost of equipment. Cryptocurrency can always be bought through an exchange office, stock exchange or from a third party, as well as earn money (for example, accept payment in Bitcoin for goods and services).

More information about the growth of difficulty in mining:

Over the past 2 weeks, Bitcoin Cash mining has become more profitable than Bitcoin mining several times. At the same time, miners migrate between the two blockchains, which does not benefit the users of either of these coins. Bitcoin Magazine figured out the process technology and possible consequences.

Mining profitability is determined by the block reward (new coins + fees) and difficulty. The higher the reward and the lower the difficulty, the more the miner earns.

The difficulty of mining Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash automatically changes every 2016 blocks. If the release of these 2016 blocks takes more than two weeks, then the difficulty drops, along with which it becomes easier to mine new blocks. If 2016 blocks appear within 2 weeks, then the difficulty increases; hence, it becomes harder to mine new blocks.

Obviously, the difficulty of mining Bitcoin Cash must be significantly lower than the difficulty of Bitcoin mining in order for miners to be interested in forming the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. If the Bitcoin Cash block reward is 15% of the Bitcoin block reward, then the difficulty of mining Bitcoin Cash must be 15% of the difficulty of mining Bitcoin or less. Otherwise, the profitability of Bitcoin mining will be higher, and there will be no reason for miners to dedicate their computing power to Bitcoin Cash.

The problem is that sooner or later the difficulty of mining Bitcoin Cash will increase, while the rewards will remain the same. It is clear that at this point, the miners will abandon the Bitcoin Cash blockchain and go to mine bitcoins. To solve this problem, the emergency difficulty adjustment (EDA) function was integrated into Bitcoin Cash. If less than 6 blocks are mined in 12 hours, then the difficulty of mining the next 6 blocks will be 20% lower. If miners work together, they can reduce mining difficulty by 75% in one day.

The developers of Bitcoin Cash chose the lesser of two evils and allowed the miners to manipulate the difficulty, but they are guaranteed not to leave the blockchain without movement. This does not reduce the scale of the problem, which needs to be addressed somehow.

As soon as the difficulty drops to a certain level, miners switch to the Bitcoin Cash blockchain and produce a huge number of blocks before the difficulty rises again in a day or two. After that, they return to bitcoin mining again, waiting for the EDA algorithm to work, and then return to the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, thus working on a certain cycle. The formation of this cycle entails a lot of problems.

First, it negatively affects bitcoin users. Every time miners jump onto the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, the hash rate on the Bitcoin network drops, which means blocks are issued more slowly. As a result, the time of transaction confirmation and commission increases. The fact that miners are consciously participating in this cycle means that the problem will not be solved overnight. This situation can persist for weeks or months until the developers of Bitcoin Cash do something.

In addition, the confirmation time for Bitcoin Cash transactions is constantly jumping. On certain days, transactions are confirmed very quickly, and blocks are found every minute. On other days, new blocks almost do not appear, for at least 12 hours, respectively, transactions are not processed.

At the same time, the volume of Bitcoin Cash emission is growing very quickly: 4 times faster than under normal conditions. Because of this, Bitcoin Cash has a high inflation rate. The inflation rate for Bitcoin is 4% and Bitcoin Cash is 16%. This means that miners earn at the expense of BCH holders.

In addition, the reduction of the reward for the Bitcoin Cash block will occur as early as mid-2018, and not in mid-2020, as expected. And if nothing changes, then the reward will be reduced again at the beginning of 2019. Thus, in a little more than a year, the Bitcoin Cash block reward will be 3.125 BCH.

This is where the real problems begin. Bitcoin Cash seeks to ensure the lowest possible transaction fees or get rid of them altogether, presenting this as one of the main advantages of cryptocurrency compared to bitcoin. It is still unclear how the drop in block reward will affect fees. It is unlikely that commissions will be able to make up for the drop in rewards anytime soon. Thus, if the BCH rate against BTC does not rise quickly and significantly, miners may lose interest in mining Bitcoin Cash.

In addition, miners can try to squeeze everything they can out of Bitcoin Cash in the shortest possible time. They can start producing 2016 blocks not in two days, as they are now, but in one. Or faster. At the same time, the decrease in the block reward will occur even earlier, after which miners will have to reduce the difficulty by 2 times in order for Bitcoin Cash mining to remain competitive with Bitcoin mining.

As we can see, the emergency EDA difficulty adjustment is a downward spiral that leaves Bitcoin Cash extremely vulnerable to a 51% attack. In addition, there are other ways in which miners can have a negative impact on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. For example, they can block an urgent change in difficulty.

One day, the day may come when Bitcoin Cash mining is no longer profitable, and then the miners will stop switching between the two cryptocurrencies, leaving the Bitcoin Cash blockchain forever. Developers already

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