28 Jun 2021
23-minute blocks
The Chinese crackdown on miners has led the daily mean block interval to shoot far above the regular 10-minute block interval. On Sunday, the mean block interval reached 23 minutes.
Last week, we mentioned that the 7-day moving average hashrate in bitcoin had declined to 116 EH/S. This week, it’s dropped further, and on Sunday, the 7-day average hashrate hit an 18-month low of 91 EH/S.This has led the mean block interval to skyrocket far above the normal state of 10 minutes per block. On Sunday, the mean block interval sat at 23 minutes.The mean block interval has not been this high since the pre-2010 era.The network will re-adjust this week with a major difficulty adjustment. Currently, the difficulty is estimated to be reduced by 24.21%, according to BTC.com. This is the highest reduction in difficulty ever recorded in bitcoin.As the difficulty readjustment occurs, bitcoin will again approach the normal state block interval of 10 minutes. Miners outside of China will then get to enjoy the fruits of the Chinese miner crackdown as the block interval readjusts and the daily block subsidies approach 900 BTC again.Over time, as the Chines miners are able to resume mining in other jurisdictions (Both Kazakhstan and Texas have been mentioned frequently), the hashrate in the bitcoin network will likely start climbing again.