Estimated difficulty question

[Serge]

I'm looking at Bitcoin Charts and seeing following now:


Difficulty   1379223
Estimated   1433429 in 1612 blks

Blocks/hour   6.01 / 599 s


My question, if we're currently generating 6.01 blocks an hour, shouldn't  the estimated difficulty be much closer to current difficulty level? Or at 6blocks/hour it is still expected to increase?

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[fascistmuffin]

That's only like a ~4% increase, not that big compared to the one we just had.

[Serge]

Yes, true

But my understanding was that at 6 blocks/hr  difficulty shouldn't increase, even if its only ~4%

PS I know its too early before next re-evaluation of difficulty, and the hash rate and blocks/hr  can and will change..  but let's assume blocks per hours stay at 6 - will estimated difficulty level with current one closer to the reset?

[einsteinx2]

Yes, true

But my understanding was that at 6 blocks/hr  difficulty shouldn't increase, even if its only ~4%

Yes but about 400 blocks were completed already. It may be 6.01 blocks per hour right now (in fact at this second it's actually 6.36), but for other times during that 400 blocks it was higher than 6.01, so in total, an average of 4% more than 6 blocks per hour was completed. The average speed will continue to change over the next 1600 blocks as the hashing speed fluctuates.

[Serge]

Yes, true

But my understanding was that at 6 blocks/hr  difficulty shouldn't increase, even if its only ~4%

Yes but about 400 blocks were completed already. It may be 6.01 blocks per hour right now (in fact at this second it's actually 6.36), but for other times during that 400 blocks it was higher than 6.01, so in total, an average of 4% more than 6 blocks per hour was completed. The average speed will continue to change over the next 1600 blocks as the hashing speed fluctuates.

Thank you! lol I knew I was missing something, didn't account for past recent higher generating speed.

/thread  =)