Bitcoin Difficulty
Bitcoin difficulty is an important measurement for miners to understand when participating in the Bitcoin network. It refers to how much “work” must be done by miners in order to successfully mine a block of transactions and receive their reward. The higher the difficulty, the more computing power must be used, making it harder and more expensive to achieve success.
The level of difficulty adjusts automatically over time as new blocks are added so that overall mining remains profitable despite changes in technology or increases/decreases in total miner participation within the network. This adjustment process helps keep Bitcoin secure from attack vectors such as 51% attacks which could otherwise occur if one entity was able to gain control of most or all hashing power on the network at once.
Every 2 weeks (or 2016 blocks), this value adjusts based on observed hashrate outcomes during that period; if less than expected hashes were found, then the next 2016-block period will have slightly higher difficulties while conversely lower values result following periods with greater than expected hashrates being discovered by participants across various pools and networks around the world.
In summary, bitcoin difficulty is part of what makes proof-of-work consensus systems like Bitcoin possible although its primary purpose is mainly related directly towards helping maintain economic equilibrium between supply & demand forces among varying types of hardware configurations available throughout global markets today thus allowing individuals with any type equipment configuration access into mining without feeling disadvantaged due solely because they do not own larger ASIC rigs compared other competitors who may enter into market after them resulting unwanted competition outbidding each other negative effects upon profitability potential rewards earned per unit electricity consumed respective device setups employed use case scenarios respectively .
