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Mining difficulty
Also: mining difficulty, difficulty adjustment
A setting Bitcoin adjusts about every two weeks so blocks keep arriving roughly every ten minutes.
If more miners join, blocks would arrive faster. Bitcoin compensates by raising difficulty every 2,016 blocks (about two weeks), and lowering it if hashrateHashrate The total computing power miners are pointing at a proof-of-work network. falls. The adjustment keeps new-coin issuance on schedule.