It matters according to equation (48) on page 7 in the Ethereum design specification [1]. This section specifies how to adjust the difficulty target for each n

It matters according to equation (48) on page 7 in the Ethereum design specification [1]. This section specifies how to adjust the difficulty target for each new block. The optimization (I hesitate to call it an attack) identified in the paper could have been rendered ineffective if rounding down (for division by 2048 and by 9) was delayed until after the multiplication in equation (45), resulting in a much smoother adjustment. The so-called "yellow paper" sadly lacks a motivation of all the seemingly arbitrary numbers involved. [1] https://ethereum.github.io/yellowpaper/paper.pdf https://ethereum.github.io/yellowpaper/paper.pdf