How did it all start? Who generated the genesis block?

[Sovereign]

Is there something embedded in the genesis block that regulates difficulty? If not, then who decides difficulty, wouldn't a central authority (yikes) need to decide the difficulty level?

It seems so baffling to me, like asking where did the universe come from. But I'm intent on learning.

[paraipan]

You could very easily start by reading the bitcoin wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

[Sovereign]

You could very easily start by reading the bitcoin wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

I already read that a few times, I'm asking a specific question about who made the genesis block, and how difficulty level is implemented.

[zybron]

Difficulty: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty

And I would presume Sotoshi generated the genesis block, but I have no actual confirmation on that.

[kokjo]

Is there something embedded in the genesis block that regulates difficulty? If not, then who decides difficulty, wouldn't a central authority (yikes) need to decide the difficulty level?

It seems so baffling to me, like asking where did the universe come from. But I'm intent on learning.

the client will not accept a block with a lower difficulty, then it takes to generate a block on avg. 10 min.
there will be on avg. 1 block per 10 min, at some difficulty. but if there are generated more blocks for 10 min. the clients will adjust the difficulty, so there will be generated a block per 10 min, again. if it takes more time the oppsite will happen: slow block generation -> lower difficulty.

hoped it helped

[Sovereign]

Is there something embedded in the genesis block that regulates difficulty? If not, then who decides difficulty, wouldn't a central authority (yikes) need to decide the difficulty level?

It seems so baffling to me, like asking where did the universe come from. But I'm intent on learning.

the client will not accept a block with a lower difficulty, then it takes to generate a block on avg. 10 min.
there will be on avg. 1 block per 10 min, at some difficulty. but if there are generated more blocks for 10 min. the clients will adjust the difficulty, so there will be generated a block per 10 min, again. if it takes more time the oppsite will happen: slow block generation -> lower difficulty.

hoped it helped

Amazing.

But what guarantees everyone will use the same difficulty? How is the difficulty globalized?

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Is there something embedded in the genesis block that regulates difficulty? If not, then who decides difficulty, wouldn't a central authority (yikes) need to decide the difficulty level?

It seems so baffling to me, like asking where did the universe come from. But I'm intent on learning.

the client will not accept a block with a lower difficulty, then it takes to generate a block on avg. 10 min.
there will be on avg. 1 block per 10 min, at some difficulty. but if there are generated more blocks for 10 min. the clients will adjust the difficulty, so there will be generated a block per 10 min, again. if it takes more time the oppsite will happen: slow block generation -> lower difficulty.

hoped it helped

Amazing.

But what guarantees everyone will use the same difficulty? How is the difficulty globalized?

Everyone calculates it based on the same block chain. The protocol specifies exactly how the calculation is to be made.

[caveden]

But what guarantees everyone will use the same difficulty? How is the difficulty globalized?

That's the protocol. Every bitcoin full node will verify that each new block respects the difficult factor. If somebody starts producing/accepting blocks which don't follow this rule, s/he will end up with forked chain.

There's no "hard guarantee" that a good number of people won't switch to a different chain that doesn't follow the current rules. It just hasn't happened yet and I don't think it's likely to happen any time soon.