why today such high difficulty?
Because someone hired the nicehash botnet and then stopped before the difficulty exploded. Now the permanent miners pay the price for those grabbed coins, because the difficulty adjustment is incredibly slow and delayed. Currently it takes 9 hours for 20 blocks to be mined. It should be 1 hour. So the miners receive 9 times less coins than they should. Read through the last two months of this thread. Old problem.
Height Maturity Difficulty Block Hash Time Found Luck
40127 20 to go 44045619 0ee13cb5f15ebd4434192cb59abf27f3c7ab1c9f916f49fbcbe3bf27177e5429 11/26/2017, 9:50:27 PM 5%
40126 19 to go 44179717 f32651a4f5972c7b35767aef8724f4cf5f4e4325837e2464c82a48322e020b0f 11/26/2017, 9:23:45 PM -68%
40124 17 to go 45469964 d07ba437f3903bdf34a68de133f15c3377df822824def1dcd48dca20e27c95ce 11/26/2017, 7:40:00 PM -42%
40123 16 to go 46053109 adaff29ba568a2a803b692233aa48a138bd3c6e7e68ead66efcd741dd736bb04 11/26/2017, 6:40:56 PM 78%
40122 15 to go 45881365 40de6b3416076ba37f37ee7a866fed8adc12a38110b025a2588b3444e9d430db 11/26/2017, 6:34:20 PM -23%
40121 14 to go 45576263 aaaa33c9660cd277e6aac06f56fd0ee61ad945d81c25124189281c509acbcc17 11/26/2017, 5:54:31 PM -39%
40120 13 to go 45297678 c6bc072b651bb77f4ea1e551e7e7a4188125c4611a389ddfd02b4427eea9638a 11/26/2017, 5:03:53 PM -74%
40117 10 to go 45041070 2b7a10430affb8ec3d2bba4f54055a97f5fbb5060d6411089e1a5e87e62a4cdb 11/26/2017, 3:38:34 PM 18%
40115 8 to go 44300841 b89c479b26d5dc163ff521cb5035b40836f89e962d5b6d6a3aafdf5fae11a4b1 11/26/2017, 3:25:11 PM 42%
40114 7 to go 44308406 1f373b785a3c6cf482a0292332d40cdc97cb95d60a441dff1de6a6b897eeb3c4 11/26/2017, 3:17:54 PM 6%
40113 6 to go 44102457 daf52fa2678aaf9bc885a0b94231cac44d62b23de102cd643351a98f0b17cac5 11/26/2017, 3:01:08 PM 74%
40112 5 to go 44239594 8bb54d14fcb317fed9ae561f9177055f247a0735aaee3235d638f11fa06fbb5c 11/26/2017, 2:57:17 PM -43%
40111 4 to go 44063443 957d9aa43cd44145241eda71832713244201155efb28d2a1f5e5f3c1e7a028f0 11/26/2017, 2:27:04 PM -67%
40110 3 to go 43840623 ee5048a903ec6295a7dd5c5beb7b147c2f32301440508d45b2f757ee8620f29f 11/26/2017, 1:09:53 PM 52%
40108 1 to go 43333796 9c9d678390cbcda446e2aa6aca29a173a5b6902368d6ca4a8132d08949f15df7 11/26/2017, 12:54:22 PM 75%
Who drives the difficulty of the coin? Are there any other pools?
No, the attack happened like always through the mine77 pool. The owner obviously doesn't care as he explicitely invites the bots by offering them a dedicated port.
Port: 8888
SSL/TLS Port: 8899
Fixed Difficulty: 400000
Description: NiceHash
The 5 blocks missing on mine77 are on irdpool:
Height Maturity Difficulty Block Hash Time Found Shares/Diff
40125 18 to go 45208275 459b92a79ef09ffcd55124ed424d16e7640590b8e70b2362145763830b54183e 11/26/2017, 8:13:16 PM 274%
40119 12 to go 45153669 6501a6c679cfebeedd5a5a000b9a30a5e6d7a7d0b060f3ccc781b48772615ddd 11/26/2017, 3:56:42 PM 4%
40118 11 to go 45188745 5a54e429b558466017e6cee5c66199a7a30d3862828212cdf98b1f1062501767 11/26/2017, 3:53:20 PM 15%
40116 9 to go 44437803 25a38ee789271bfe294a4b3cec828497bf64d4e20f5231c1a0e0e4eaf8995dcf 11/26/2017, 3:36:22 PM 163%
40109 2 to go 43626961 007b6ec0004682485cc42c501e6fba11270ffeba396b7ca5b28bacb743974365 11/26/2017, 1:00:53 PM 53%
So there is no other hashrate and no other pools effectively contributing at the moment.
The 20kH/s on mine77 and the 5kH/s on irdpool are now wasting their electricity to bring down the difficulty to the correct level. It will take several days.
Once it is down again, the idiot with the nicehash botnet will come again and rape the chain.
If you scroll back through the blocks history you will see how the blocks were flying yesterday, basically 60 blocks per hour and more.
@devs: Instead of switching to the DAA which Masari implemented, which is the one that Sumokoin implemented, what about using the one which Bitcoin Cash implemented recently? The Masari/Sumokoin one is good at adjusting up quickly when an instamining attack starts, but it is pretty bad then at adjusting down again, i.e. it leaves the difficulty high way too long after the attack stopped despite blocks being very very slow. Almost as bad as the original one Iridium still is using. The BCH DAA was thoroughly tested in many simulations and should work well.