I assume you guys specifically referring to the block halving as the difficulty adjusts frequently[1], but yes, it is automatic and it already happened just hours ago. It happens after every 210,000 blocks(which is approximately every 4 years).
Difficulty was actually last adjusted on May 4th, and it won't happen again until next week. There is no relationship between the halving and difficulty adjustment.
Sorry, can you explain to a layman when the difficulty adjustments happen? I've always thought it's automatic, but can you tell me if it is?
The difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks. It's only "automatic" as long as miners keep mining.
Let's wait and see how much of an impact this will have
630000 2020-05-11 19:23
630034 2020-05-12 02:12
That's 409 minutes for 34 blocks, 12 minutes on average!
Block generation sped up overnight. Now we've seen 135 blocks in 1,365 minutes, which is just over 10 minutes per block.