imagine it this way
if there are 10 olympic runners each averaging a time of 9.5-10.5 seconds in a 100metre run.. only 1 can win
take one person off the track does not make the other runners run slower. it just means the chances of the 9 remaining runners winning increases. the average win is still the same average. but now 9 people get more wins when they run regularly
what does cause a speed up or slowdown. is if each of the runners are using more or less muscle(asics) then previous fortnight. meaning the average time over a fortnight has changed to be more or less then the needed average.
taking one competitor out of the race does not impact the speed of the other runners.
if one runner doesnt turn up. the other runners dont suddenly walk the 100m out of compassion for a lost competitor. the other runners still run at their same average speed. and now get a higher chance of winning per race
If Russian miners can not see blocks coming from the rest of the world and the world does not see Russia's, then does it not lead to forking?
I believe o_e_l_e_o meant something else. If you have 75% of the hashrate and I have 25% and suddenly we lose connection, the blocks continue on my side as if you disconnected and on your side as if I did. You still have a significantly higher hashrate than I do, which makes it easier to solve blocks for you than it is for me. Since to me it is way more difficult to solve blocks, by the time difficulty changes you will have mined more blocks than I did. The difficulty changes, so now your chain continues to be first although I do not see it yet. Now the question remains, do we continue sideways until we connect and my progress vanishes in front of your chain or do we fork? The safest and most logical way is the latter, unless the Russians want to play a Bitcoin Russian roulette.
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Regards,
PrivacyG
franky1 is referring to my statement that the main chain will take longer to mine blocks if it loses all the Russian hashrate. He is incorrect, and his analogy is flawed. Let's assume that there is 100 EH/s, and Russian miners control 10 EH/s. The difficulty is set so that with 100 EH/s, blocks take on average 10 minutes. If we then lose all the Russian hashrate, we will drop to 90 EH/s, whereas the difficulty will still be set to target 10 minute block times for 100 EH/s. Until the next difficulty retarget, which will be a maximum of 2016 blocks away, then the average block time will be prolonged.
In the scenario you are talking about, there would initially be a chain split, but not a fork. The rest of the world would mine a chain of blocks, and Russian miners would mine a different chain of blocks. If nothing changed about the two protocols by the time communication was reestablished, then the Russian chain would simply be discarded in favor of the main chain. The other possibility is that one or both chains implement a fork which is not compatible with the other chain, and so they stay as separate coins after communication is reestablished. This could be an adjustment to the difficulty algorithm on the Russian chain, or perhaps some new upgrade on the main chain which is not reflected on the Russian chain.
Note also that it is not the length of the chains which decides which one is the main chain, but rather which one contains more work. Even if the Russians drop the difficulty massively and suddenly mine tens of thousands of blocks, the rest of the world's shorter chain would still be the main chain because it contains more work due to the higher difficulty and higher cumulative hashrate.