2-3 days ago I was mining solo and getting more than half the blocks when difficulty was like 25k.
At some point I took some core off mining because I was affecting difficulty for myself

That would be me. Testing Xcz.mypool.name starting yesterday w/GPU rig. Net hash went from 150k to 620k then I set up my own pool and switched from mypool.name to my private one. Gonna grab 3 million or so coins then move on. Expect Network diff to climb fast over the next few days.