4 ms·
> to prevent volatility in block hardness Kind of, it's to prevent an attack where nodes could be isolated and then duped to believe that the network difficult
by RL_Quine 4y ago
> to prevent volatility in block hardness
Kind of, it's to prevent an attack where nodes could be isolated and then duped to believe that the network difficulty is substantially lower than it should be. If we adjusted difficulty with every block (some altcoins do this), we could simply disrupt your connection to the network, wait until you would accept a block with a very low difficulty because 8 hours have passed with no blocks, and then mine that.
- latchkey 4y agoETH adjusts every block. Your attack scenario is inaccurate. There is no single point of disruption to be had.
- rrrrro 4y agoThe block difficulty is calculated from the time between previous blocks. The time since you last received a block is not taken into account. Because not everyone clock is exactly the same, you could end up with different difficulties.
- RL_Quine 4y agoNo, some altcoins actually do adjust like this to prevent their networks being "stuck" at a high difficulty.
- AndrewDucker 4y agoYou'd only get the isolated nodes to accept that block though, most nodes would reject it. So I'm not sure what you'd gain.