>Initial tests showed that block 218430 with considerably higher difficulty is solved more efficiently than the genesis block 0 for a given nonce range. This i

>Initial tests showed that block 218430 with considerably higher difficulty is solved more efficiently than the genesis block 0 for a given nonce range. This is very misleading. 99.99999999% of the work of finding a valid block is finding the right block header to mine on. You have 2^32 possible nonces, and your odds of finding a block are 1 in 2^67. By giving his program the block in advance, he's taking a shortcut. An algorithm that could quickly decide whether a block header contained a valid solution would be very valuable indeed.