# As Difficulty Increases will my node's Sol/s decrease

**URL:** <https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/as-difficulty-increases-will-my-nodes-sol-s-decrease/8684>\
**Category:** Technical Support\
**Created:** [November 18, 2016, 3:13pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/as-difficulty-increases-will-my-nodes-sol-s-decrease/8684 "2016-11-18T15:13:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@fibonacci](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/fibonacci)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 3:13pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/as-difficulty-increases-will-my-nodes-sol-s-decrease/8684/1 "2016-11-18T15:13:11Z")

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My chance of mining a coin is very slim running solo. Looking for a way to determine when I have no chance of mining and should just turn mining off. As difficulty increases I’m assuming Sol/s will decrease. New blocks are created every 150 seconds. My current Sol/s is 4.5. That’s 675 solutions a block. Assuming the sol/s will decrease as difficulty increases, once the Sol/s reaches 0 it’s time to turn mining off.

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**Author:** ![vgm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/zcash/user_avatar/forum.zcashcommunity.com/vgm/32/13595_2.png) [@vgm](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/vgm)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/as-difficulty-increases-will-my-nodes-sol-s-decrease/8684/2 "2016-11-18T15:42:53Z")

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No, that’s not how difficulty works.

Difficulty is the method the protocol uses to maintain it’s target block time (2.5 minutes for Zcash, 10 minutes for Bitcoin, 15 seconds for Ethereum, etc.). Your hash rate does not change at all with difficulty increases. As new miners join, the total network hash rate grows, and the difficulty has to grow proportionally to keep the block time the same. Keep in mind that even though your hash rate will remain at 4.5 sol/s, your income will decrease as difficulty rises. This is not because difficulty affects your hash rate, rather it is a result of the network hash rate growing, and your personal hash rate will now represent a smaller piece of the pie as a result.

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**Author:** ![fibonacci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@fibonacci](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/fibonacci)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/as-difficulty-increases-will-my-nodes-sol-s-decrease/8684/3 "2016-11-18T16:11:55Z")

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Thanks for the clarification. Does joining a pool hurt the network? Assuming that pools are sharing a node and processing for that node.