Mastering Blockchain - Second Edition

DigiShield

This is another difficulty retargeting algorithm that has recently been used in Zcash with slight variations and after adequate experimentation. This algorithm works by going through a fixed number of previous blocks to calculate the time they took to be generated and then readjusts the difficulty to the difficulty of the previous block by dividing the actual time span by averaging the target time. In this scheme, the retargeting is calculated much more rapidly, and also the recovery from a sudden increase or decrease in hash rate is quick. This algorithm protects against multipools, which can result in rapid hash rate increases.

The network difficulty is readjusted every block or every minute depending on the implementation. The ...