What is the Ethereum "Difficulty Bomb"?

Editor's Note: This article comes fromVernacular Blockchain (ID: hellobtc), Author: Yan, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.

Vernacular Blockchain (ID: hellobtc)EthereumVernacular Blockchain (ID: hellobtc), Author: Yan, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.The Ethereum "difficulty bomb" is a piece of code embedded by Ethereum developers in 2015, which artificially slows down the issuance of Ethereum by gradually increasing the difficulty of blockchain mining. This mechanism is to enable

Towards

Proof of Stake Mechanism Algorithm

designed for a dramatic transformation.

secondary titleminerWhy introduce the difficulty bomb?

if all

miner

If neither has switched to proof-of-stake, the Ethereum blockchain may fork. A similar situation happened with Bitcoin in 2017, when Bitcoin miners forced a hard fork by backing Bitcoin Cash. However, the founders of Ethereum foresaw this situation, programming its blockchain to make the mining algorithm harder for miners.

But why would developers do this? Because they will eventually want miners to stop mining and start validating. Ethereum will transition from a proof-of-work consensus algorithm to a proof-of-stake algorithm. There is no mining in Proof of Stake, what will be needed will be validators.

secondary title

What does the "difficulty bomb" mean for miners and DApps?

The difficulty level of the Ethereum blockchain was increased in November 2016 from block 200,000.

Ethereum chief business officer Stephen Tual said in an August 2015 blog post:

At that point (right around the time the Serenity milestone is released) we will see a substantial increase in difficulty which will start to drive block production times higher. "