There is one more issue that needs to be resolved: how to maintain the new block building rate of 10 minutes. If nothing is done, the mining rate will change due to the following factors:
- The number of miners on the network can vary in response to the BTC price
- Technology advancements make mining rigs progressively faster
- The total number of mining rigs varies
Bitcoin adjusts the difficulty level of the mathematical puzzle in order to keep the building rate at 10 minutes. The difficulty level is calculated from the rate at which the most recent blocks were added in. If the average rate of new blocks being added is less than 10 minutes, the difficulty level will be increased. If the average rate takes more than ...
