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Re:Bitcoin Can Drop 50% and China Miners Will Still Make Money by ikeboy on Thursday January 11, 2018 @02:21PM (#16126888)
Not really. If they release a new miner that's an order of magnitude more efficient the difficulty will shoot up as soon as enough units are online.
Re:Bitcoin Can Drop 50% and China Miners Will Still Make Money by ThrustVectoring on Thursday January 11, 2018 @02:40PM (#16127090)
Hmm. I thought I remembered reading something about two weeks, but that's the time period required without enough blocks to make difficulty fall.
Re:Bitcoin Can Drop 50% and China Miners Will Still Make Money by ikeboy on Thursday January 11, 2018 @02:49PM (#16127173)
It adjusts every 2016 blocks, but if new miners come online that could in theory be mined in a day instead of two weeks.

I haven't looked too closely at how difficulty adjusted after previous order of magnitude efficiency gains, but the risk is certainly there.