Is it normal that so few blocks are being mined at the moment?
I see 4 blocks have been mined in the last 2h15. I don't often check the number of blocks being mined, but 4 blocks instead of the expected 13 seems to be way off from normal to me.
That seems unusual but not impossible. It happens once in a while and most possibly during the time when the price of bitcoin increases rapidly. But aside from that season it is very unhreard of but as long as the transactions are successful then that is fine.
I'm not sure if this thing should be an alarming case if it becomes rampant or becomes a frequent situation.
its got nothing to do with the price of bitcoin.
the 10 minute theory is not a hard rule
the hard rule is 2016 blocks in 2 weeks..
this could be 2015 blocks in 2 hours and then 1 block taking 1 week, 22hours
this could be 1008 blocks in 1 day hours and then 1008 block taking 1 week, 5day 23hours, 50 minutes
where in both cases no difficulty adjustment is needed.
or it could be only 1995 blocks are found in the next 2 weeks. causing the difficulty to drop to compensate
or it could be only 2036 blocks are found in the next 2 weeks. causing the difficulty to rise to compensate
the reason most blocks are found in ~10 minutes is when hashrate is exceeding difficulty that more often than not blocks are found quit rapidly.
on the 28th of december the difficulty jumped by 2% (310-317) but the hashrate has not grown by 2%.
the hashrate was at 2,575 and is now 2,337 (-1%) meaning the solution is 2% harder but the hashrate is 1% less.. causing a 3% drop in efficiency.
this wont correlate exactly to a 3% change in timing. but more so a 3% more of a chance that some blocks will take longer than usual.
EG imagine there were 2016 blocks measured at ~10minutes
it could mean
60 blocks taking a little longer than usual(11min instead of 10mins)
6 blocks taking alot longer than usual(an hour instead of 10mins)
1 block taking even lonnger than usual (6 hours instead of 10mins)
the first one is most likely. the last one is least likely. but no one can know with exactly honestly when the next block will be solved to the exact second.
its only average 10minutes based on the maths of 2 weeks