Re: What the #@!$ is going on ?!

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Why have the past few months processed 6 blocks rapidly then had a massive gap between the next one? What happened to average 10 mins per block? Looking at this, 120 minutes between six blocks is 20 minutes per block average, which is double the expected time.

Its the average of ~~the last~~* 2016 blocks that count. Should that average result in 20 minutes the difficulty will be lowered.

*correction, its not actually checked every new block, so "the last 2016" is not correct.

what do 2016 blocks have to do with current confirmation times...and if the average is 20 minutes and the difficulty is lowered wouldn't it be EASIER to mine blocks? sort of contradicts it self doesn't it?

Bitcoin retargets by the average timing of the last 2016 blocks. If the average is more than 10 minutes, the difficulty will be lowered if the average is less than 10 minutes, the difficulty will rise. It does not seem to be going to decrease however, look at https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty. They estimate the difficulty increase. Variance happens frequently so that is something we cannot avoid. At times, it can be faster and at times it can be slower.