[2016-08-04]Bitcoin difficulty drops after halving and Bitfinex attack

[smartgerman]

Bitcoin difficulty drops after halving and Bitfinex attack
In the last adjustment, mining difficulty fell by 5.43% – the largest decrease in the last eighteen months.
It happened three weeks after bitcoin halving and immediately after the hack of Bitfinex.
http://www.coinfox.info/news/6115-bitcoin-difficulty-drops-after-halving-and-bitfinex-attack

[ThePokerTranslator]

Shouldn't difficulty increase as time goes on?

[cr1776]

Shouldn't difficulty increase as time goes on?

It usually does, but not always...in a year it has gone from 377... to 1445...:

Aug 02 2016   201,893,210,853   -5.43%   1,445,207,896 GH/s
Jul 18 2016   213,492,501,108   0.04%   1,528,238,850 GH/s
Jul 04 2016   213,398,925,331   1.88%   1,527,569,009 GH/s
Jun 21 2016   209,453,158,595   6.83%   1,499,324,110 GH/s
Jun 08 2016   196,061,423,940   -1.63%   1,403,462,340 GH/s
May 24 2016   199,312,067,531   2.60%   1,426,731,353 GH/s
May 11 2016   194,254,820,283   8.73%   1,390,530,167 GH/s
Apr 28 2016   178,659,257,773   -0.01%   1,278,892,782 GH/s
...
Dec 31 2015   103,880,340,815   11.16%   743,604,444 GH/s
...
Aug 22 2015   54,256,630,328          2.95%   388,384,088 GH/s
Aug 08 2015   52,699,842,409         0.81%   377,240,166 GH/s
...
Oct 23 2014   35,985,640,265         2.81%   257,595,247 GH/s


See https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty
among other places

[xhomerx10]

Shouldn't difficulty increase as time goes on?

 Difficulty adjusts automatically every 2016 blocks in order to keep the block confirmation time @ 600 seconds.