BCH slow block generation for three hours - a low-probability event that needs attention

According to the BCH network computing power data, the BCH computing power dropped rapidly by about 10% on the 26th. At the same time, the BTC network computing power soared rapidly. The community speculated that a large part of BCH's computing power was transferred to BTC. At that time, the BTC price soared, making it more profitable to mine BTC than to mine BCH. BCH and BTC have the same algorithm, and miners can easily switch computing power between the BCH network and the BTC network. In the end, unknown profit-seeking miners were attracted to the BTC network. BCH's computing power plummeted in a short period of time, resulting in unstable block generation, which is also the main reason why BCH did not generate blocks for 3 hours this time.

Theoretically, the BCH block time is 10 minutes, and a new block will be generated every 10 minutes. In order to stabilize the block time at 10 minutes, BCH deploys the DAA difficulty adjustment mechanism, which adjusts the difficulty to be calculated according to the computing power of the entire network. BCH will adjust the difficulty according to the current computing power every 144 blocks. Of course, this 10 minutes refers to an average of 10 minutes. Due to network delays and bandwidth, there may be a slight fluctuation up and down, which is completely a probabilistic event. This is why sometimes there is no block for an hour. When faced with emergencies, such as a sharp increase or decrease in computing power in a short period of time, this phenomenon will be exacerbated.

Of course, this phenomenon is not uncommon in the blockchain world. According to the BTC block network, on October 1, the Bitcoin network mined a block with an abnormally slow block time, which took a total of 119 minutes to mine. The 597272 block was produced at 23:08:45 on September 30, and the next block 597273 was produced at 01:07:42 on October 1, which took 119 minutes to calculate. Then, the 597274 block was mined in just one minute. Although the mining power of the Bitcoin network has hit a new high recently, this abnormal phenomenon still occurred.

Whether it is BCH or BTC, the problem of unstable block generation needs to be taken seriously by the community and developers. This is not only related to the security of the network, but also the guarantee of user experience.

BCH network data shows that since the incident, the difficulty of the entire network has been rapidly reduced. The DAA itself is 144 blocks, which means it will be adjusted once a day. After the difficulty is reduced, BCH mining is easier and the mining cost is reduced. This has attracted profit-seeking miners to join the BCH network again, attracting the return of computing power, and then the BCH network has been stable in producing blocks. As of yesterday, the computing power of the BCH network has increased by about 10%.

It is worth mentioning that after BCH slowly produced blocks, the first block 606219 produced 3 hours later contained 7782 transactions, basically packaging the transactions that had not been confirmed within three hours. It was a large block with a full 2.4M. During the slow block production process, the transaction fee remained between 0.002 and 0.003 US dollars.

Many users have put forward their own ideas about this incident, and many people have again proposed a plan to shorten the block time to improve the block time. The discussion on shortening the block time of BCH started last year, and the BCH Chinese community even set up a website for voting.

Indeed, in theory, BCH's 10-minute block time can be compressed. With the current level of transaction diffusion, BCH can complete the broadcast block, verification block, and POW calculation of the new block within 2 minutes. Such an improvement can make BCH achieve transaction propagation speed several times faster than before, and naturally, incidents like this will not happen, with lower transaction fees, faster speed and better experience.

Ultimately, the fluctuation of computing power due to price fluctuation is only a low-probability event. But this still rings the alarm bell for developers and the community, not just BCH, but also BTC. Users need developers to come up with a response plan as soon as possible.