<blockquote>
<p>If the target hash were artificially low, i.e. 3, how do miners know if there will ever be a nonce that produces such a hash?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They don't.</p>
<p>However if the difficulty were ever such that miners were unable to mine new blocks at the expected rate (1 every 10 minutes approximately), the difficulty algorithm would reduce the difficulty after a while (up to 2 weeks if I remember correctly)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-28T14:52:54.970Z
The difficulty resets every 2016 blocks by a factor in the range of 0.25–4. So we'd be a bit in a predicament if we couldn't mine blocks at all anymore. ;)
Murch
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-28T15:28:22.807Z
@Murch Yes. I suspect it would take an unprecedented and unforseeable worldwide catastrophe of extraordinary rapidity to get into this situation in the first place.
RedGrittyBrick
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-28T09:38:18.327Z
2020-09-28T15:25:54.980Z
2020-09-28T15:25:54.980Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>You try all 2^32 possible nonces. On realistic mining hardware, that takes a very tiny fraction of a second. Of course, most of the time there is no nonce that works. Mining is so hard that all the miners combined only find a block that has any nonce that meets the difficulty once every ten minutes.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-29T04:01:27.477Z
2020-08-29T04:01:27.477Z
David Schwartz
<p>For a given block header where the only variable is the nonce, it is trivial to brute force all nonce values and verify if any gives a hash that meets the target.</p>
<p>For the vast majority of block hashes, no nonce value will meet the target in normal difficulty settings (let alone at a target of 3).</p>
<p>Miners get around this by altering other values in the block header, such as the timestamp, block version, merkle root (via altering of the Coinbase transaction and/or set of included transactions).</p>
<p>By the balance of probability, you will eventually find one block header for some combination of the above that meets the target.</p>
<p>The difficulty levels control how likely it is for that block header to be found in ~10 minutes for a given hash rate.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bitcoin Wiki</a> elaborates on how the calculation is actually performed to determine this difficulty, along with some example code.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-29T02:44:08.647Z
2020-08-29T02:44:08.647Z
Raghav Sood
<p>If the target hash were artificially low, i.e. 3, how do miners know if there will ever be a nonce that produces such a hash?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-09-28T12:36:01.593Z
Possible duplicate of https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/9933/5406, https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/22978/5406
Murch
<difficulty><hashpower><difficulty-retargetting>
How do we know that a certain hash below the target is even possible when mining?
jerpy
# How do we know that a certain hash below the target is even possible when mining?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-08-28)

If the target hash were artificially low, i.e. 3, how do miners know if there will ever be a nonce that produces such a hash?

**Tags:** difficulty, hashpower, difficulty-retargetting

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Possible duplicate of https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/9933/5406, https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/22978/5406  

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## 3 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2020-09-28. Score: 1

> If the target hash were artificially low, i.e. 3, how do miners know if there will ever be a nonce that produces such a hash?

They don't.

However if the difficulty were ever such that miners were unable to mine new blocks at the expected rate (1 every 10 minutes approximately), the difficulty algorithm would reduce the difficulty after a while (up to 2 weeks if I remember correctly)

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: The difficulty resets every 2016 blocks by a factor in the range of 0.25–4. So we'd be a bit in a predicament if we couldn't mine blocks at all anymore. ;)  
> **username_2**: @username_1 Yes. I suspect it would take an unprecedented and unforseeable worldwide catastrophe of extraordinary rapidity to get into this situation in the first place.  

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### Answer by username_3 on 2020-08-29. Score: 0

You try all 2^32 possible nonces. On realistic mining hardware, that takes a very tiny fraction of a second. Of course, most of the time there is no nonce that works. Mining is so hard that all the miners combined only find a block that has any nonce that meets the difficulty once every ten minutes.


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### Answer by username_4 on 2020-08-29. Score: 0

For a given block header where the only variable is the nonce, it is trivial to brute force all nonce values and verify if any gives a hash that meets the target.

For the vast majority of block hashes, no nonce value will meet the target in normal difficulty settings (let alone at a target of 3).

Miners get around this by altering other values in the block header, such as the timestamp, block version, merkle root (via altering of the Coinbase transaction and/or set of included transactions).

By the balance of probability, you will eventually find one block header for some combination of the above that meets the target.

The difficulty levels control how likely it is for that block header to be found in ~10 minutes for a given hash rate.

The [Bitcoin Wiki](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty) elaborates on how the calculation is actually performed to determine this difficulty, along with some example code.


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