> So does that mean the network is now demanding each ether be mined every 12 seconds You have it backwards. A 20% increase in difficulty would mean that a blo

> So does that mean the network is now demanding each ether be mined every 12 seconds You have it backwards. A 20% increase in difficulty would mean that a block was only being mined once every 18s. The intuition is that if there are fewer blocks, then it is harder to get one. I think this change is due to the etherium difficulty bomb: https://www.google.com/amp/s/themerkle.com/what-is-the-ethereum-difficulty-bomb/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/themerkle.com/what-is-the-ether...