It looks like a big miner joined in and then left, taking difficulty from 50 to 300 in a matter of  around 13 blocks. So, we're currently at block 43587 and have been there for around 40 minutes. The network still appears fine, and I do not doubt that this is only because of a huge hashrate climb and then drop off. Digishield/Slingshield will handle this and we'll be back to normal in probably around 3 or so blocks after this first one gets minted.

PROTIP: When we encounter a slow block like this, transactions start piling up, meaning transaction fees for miners start piling up for this block. The next block looks like it'll be around 10-20 FRAC worth of fees if I'm reading the `getblocktemplate` result correct.