41 minutes for a new block, difficulty wayyy too hard

[no141]

What is going on in the bitcoin mining world that is having these awful swings in block time?

[zetaray]

The difficulty is a direct result of network hashing power and a bit of luck. Instead of saying difficulty is way to hard, we should say there are way too much hashing power.

[ScryptAsic]

What is going on in the bitcoin mining world that is having these awful swings in block time?

This is just variance. It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that difficulty is 'too high'. Even if the difficulty 'matched' the hashrate perfectly (it never will because of changes in the network's luck) then it would sometimes take 41 minutes (or longer) for the network to find a block.

The 10 minute block time is only a target average

[jani]

Last difficulty increase was ~7.5%.

For that much you can attribute block discovery to be faster (in case when difficulty increases). That would be 45seconds faster.

While average time between transactions will be targeted at 10mins, times between specific blocks can vary a lot. Not long ago there was no block for 1h35mins.
And you have situations where you have 6 blocks discovered in 20mins.

It's just how statistics works.

[no141]

It's so easy to forget about the laws of averages, Thanks!

[Divinespark]

yep, its looking positively scary right now to be honest

[LiteCoinGuy]

thats a sign that bitcoin is doomed....i heard.

[no141]

You guys are funny too!

[Newar]

You guys are funny too!

You must be new!

*rhymefortheday*

[Klestin]

The expected time between blocks taking 40 minutes is 10 hours, 43 minutes. Meaning more than once per day we have a block that takes that long. This will always happen and is completely normal. Sometimes blocks take seconds and sometimes more than an hour.

You can take your logic, and your math, and your statistical analysis, and carry it right the hell away from this thread!  How dare you interrupt my fellow users' sacred right to be confused and angry over something that is working exactly as designed and expected?

[franky1]

when people complain that 1 block took 40 minutes. they forget to get excited that another 3 blocks took only a few minutes

simply put not every block is going to be 10minutes.. its an "average" of multiple blocks, not a hardset rule for each block

[inBitweTrust]

Foxpup said it best...

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%

Or within 1 minute?

9.516%

Or 10 seconds?

1.653%

Or 1 second?

0.167%

Regardless, I will join in the mortal fear that Bitcoin is doomed because investors seem to be pouring millions into new ASICs thus increasing difficulty. We are all doomed

[Transaction2015]

Yes some time is slow 

[oblivi]

Oil immersed mining caves are coming, hashing power will go thru da roof.

[smoothie]

"It's too hard ... Waaah"

Lol 

[NEM minnow]

some say it is variance, and it is but man....... that is a long time to wait for a transaction to clear. 

I bet part of it has to do with the miners dropping out.   The 10 minute estimation assumes that the hash rate is rising.  If it was steady it would be longer than that and if it was dropping even longer again. 

[inBitweTrust]

some say it is variance, and it is but man....... that is a long time to wait for a transaction to clear.  

I bet part of it has to do with the miners dropping out.   The 10 minute estimation assumes that the hash rate is rising. If it was steady it would be longer than that and if it was dropping even longer again.  

False, if the hashrate was rising before the difficulty retarget one would assume greater than 63% of transactions to confirm quicker than 10 minutes.

10 min estimate is merely a Poisson probability where 63 % of transactions will be confirmed within 10 minutes or less. This means we should expect 37 % of transactions to take longer with a constant hashrate. The Poisson process also tells you that you should expect a rare occurrence of a confirmations taking hours even if blocks are confirming quicker than normal due to hash rate accelerating before the retarget.

You are spreading misinformation when there is no need to speculate. PoW allows us to watch and see in realtime if more miners are dropping off or coming online--

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin.png

Bitcoin Difficulty:    44,455,415,962
Estimated Next Difficulty:    46,065,256,617 (+3.62%)
Adjust time:    After 773 Blocks, About 5.3 days
Hashrate(?):    327,514,676 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):    
1 block: 9.8 minutes
3 blocks: 29.3 minutes
6 blocks: 58.6 minutes
   
Updated:    19:25 (10.5 minutes ago)

When this thread was created there the data reflected a surge in hashrate and the data still reflects more miners are coming online. What this means is blocks are technically confirming slightly faster at the moment than if there was an equilibrium of hashing power.

[Brewins]

Only 1 instance of problem, or are blocks in general taking longer to be confirmed?

As said, if it only happened once, it might be the variance thing

[inBitweTrust]

Only 1 instance of problem, or are blocks in general taking longer to be confirmed?

As said, if it only happened once, it might be the variance thing

Data reflects blocks are confirming faster than the expected Poisson distribution .

[philipma1957]

some say it is variance, and it is but man....... that is a long time to wait for a transaction to clear.  

I bet part of it has to do with the miners dropping out.   The 10 minute estimation assumes that the hash rate is rising. If it was steady it would be longer than that and if it was dropping even longer again.  

False, if the hashrate was rising before the difficulty retarget one would assume greater than 63% of transactions to confirm quicker than 10 minutes.

10 min estimate is merely a Poisson probability where 63 % of transactions will be confirmed within 10 minutes or less. This means we should expect 37 % of transactions to take longer with a constant hashrate.

You are spreading misinformation when there is no need to speculate. PoW allows us to watch and see in realtime if more miners are dropping off or coming online--

https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin.png

Bitcoin Difficulty:    44,455,415,962
Estimated Next Difficulty:    46,065,256,617 (+3.62%)
Adjust time:    After 773 Blocks, About 5.3 days
Hashrate(?):    327,514,676 GH/s
Block Generation Time(?):    
1 block: 9.8 minutes
3 blocks: 29.3 minutes
6 blocks: 58.6 minutes
   
Updated:    19:25 (10.5 minutes ago)

When this thread was created there the data reflected a surge in hashrate and the data still reflects more miners are coming online. What this means is blocks are technically confirming slightly faster at the moment than if there was an equilibrium of hashing power.

that is only so so to judge.


http://btc.blockr.io/charts   this chart is blocks per day.  0.00% rise = 144 blocks

feb 10---142
feb 11---159
feb 12---124
feb 13---144
feb 14---160
feb 15---142
feb 16---158

                      7 full days  should be 7 x 144 = 1008  actual is 1029   that is   +2.08%  

 since part of feb 9 should be included that actual number at 1am feb 17th is around

+2.22 %