Please fix me if I'm wrong.
I just investigating the sources of new Electroneum update.
In src\cryptonote_basic\difficulty.cpp there is a function next_difficulty() which calculates the difficulty for new block.
According that function algorithm is the next:
1. take previous DIFFICULTY_WINDOW_V6 = 360 blocks.
2. sort them according to time found (timestamp)
3. throw out first DIFFICULTY_CUT = 60 and DIFFICULTY_CUT = 60 last blocks and keep only 240 blocks.
4. calculate the work (difficulty) done during the time of these blocks and according to that calculate new difficulty.
I see some problem in this algo.
1. Last 8 blocks (307500-307507) are the last current blocks. They will be in the end of sorted list and will be thrown out away!
So the next 52 blocks for sure will be last blocks in list too and their time will not be even taken in account during the difficulty calculations.
This means the difficulty will start to fall down only on block 307560!
2. To calculate the work done by the last 240 median blocks function next_difficulty() use the target_seconds variable:
mul(total_work, target_seconds, low, high);
BUT! Variable target_seconds now is set to 120 seconds in function get_difficulty_target() instead of 60 before fork.
This doubles the hashrate of the network and the result difficulty for the block 307500 and next!
What thats means? We are now in 3 (!!!) GH/s network and next 52 blocks will not even change the difficulty. The difficulty will go down only
after block 307560.
I don't have the answer but it would be good to get some info from dev team on this.....
Here some info related to difficulty from the reddit channel:
we neet to find around 600! blocks (10 hrs and less each)
That's a long time. 600! means 600 * 599 * 598* etc. I'd type out the answer to what number that is, but it's 1409 digits long.
adding a ! to the end of a number is the mathematical symbol for factorial, meaning the product of an integer and all the integers below.
it means around 250 days or about 8 months if we have a 10 hour block times. Thats 8 months!
600 blocks X 10 hours = 6000 hours / 24 hours = 250 days / 31days = 8 months
Etn have killed this coin if the above math is correct however we should see difficulty start to reduce in 75ish blocks so only 750 hours if we get 10 hour blocks, or a month
Your source states that the difficulty will begin to drop (for Monero) after 75, reaching full drop by 675. So we would see results by block 75 and the decline begins. Full drop for Electroneum would be less than 675 because the update halved the difficulty window from 720 to 360. This means drop begins 75 and full drop by 435. Please note I am not a blockchain developer and this is a guess at best
Somewhere i think i have readed some info, can't find the source anymore, so don't nail me on that one. That it takes either 60 or 120 blocks bevor the difficulty beginns to drop (as said, can't remember exactly what it was, but pretty sure it was either 60 or 120 blocks)