Every miner running Malairte software has seen the word difficulty in the logs. It is one of the most useful numbers to understand because it tells you whether the network is busy or quiet, and it changes automatically without anyone in charge of it.
What difficulty actually is
Difficulty is a target. The lower the target number, the harder it is for any one hash to win. The Malairte protocol picks a target so that, given the total hashrate on the network, blocks arrive at roughly the intended interval. If more miners join, difficulty rises so blocks do not start arriving too quickly. If miners leave, difficulty falls.
Why it self-adjusts
The whole point is to keep block time stable. Without an automatic adjustment, a sudden influx of GPUs would produce blocks every few seconds and the network would behave badly. The protocol re-evaluates difficulty on a regular schedule based on how fast recent blocks actually arrived.
What difficulty means for your payout
- Higher difficulty means each share or each block takes more work, so any individual miner finds fewer of them. Your hashrate has not changed, but your slice of the pie has shrunk.
- Lower difficulty means the opposite - the same hardware finds more shares.
Reading difficulty in your miner
Most miners print the current network difficulty and the pool difficulty (often a much smaller number) every few seconds. The pool difficulty is what your specific miner has to beat to register a share; the network difficulty is what the whole network has to beat to find a block. Both are useful to watch.
It is not a problem to be solved
Rising difficulty is a sign of a healthy, growing network. Falling difficulty is not a crisis either - the protocol adapts. Home miners do not need to time the market on difficulty; just keep mining steadily.