Bitcoin difficulty falls 15.95% after Black Thursday mining stress
The Bitcoin network experiences one of the largest downward difficulty adjustments in its history (-15.95%) as miners shut off machines, proving the protocol's resilience.
On March 25, 2020, Bitcoin difficulty falls 15.95% after Black Thursday mining stress. The Bitcoin network experiences one of the largest downward difficulty adjustments in its history (-15.95%) as miners shut off machines, proving the protocol's resilience.
This forced many miners, particularly those with older, less efficient hardware or higher electricity costs, to shut off their machines to avoid operating at a loss. This exodus of miners caused the network's total hash rate to drop significantly. Bitcoin's protocol is designed to handle this exact scenario. Every 2016 blocks (approximately every two weeks), the difficulty of finding a new block automatically adjusts based on the hash rate of the previous period to ensure that blocks continue to be found, on average, every ten minutes.
The massive downward adjustment made it easier for the remaining miners to find blocks, which restored profitability and stabilized the network. This event was a perfect, real-world exhibition of the antifragile nature of the Bitcoin protocol, proving it could withstand a massive external shock and continue to function exactly as designed, without any central coordination.