<p>If the maximum target was 2<sup>256</sup>-1, every candidate block would be a valid block.</p>

<p>As even the CPU miner in Bitcoin's first software release was capable of doing 100 kH/s or more, this would have led to a very rough start of the chain, with 1000s of blocks produced per second until the difficulty adjusted.</p>

<p>Because of that reason, the maximum target was probably set to a level that would guarantee not too frequent blocks after genesis.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-06T22:25:39.110Z
2018-01-06T22:25:39.110Z
Pieter Wuille
<p>I'm reading the <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Difficulty</a> page on the Bitcoin wiki.</p>
<p>Why is the maximum target <code>0x00000000FFFF0…</code> instead of <code>(2^256 - 1)</code> (i.e. <code>0xFFFFFFFFFFFF…</code>)?</p>

<difficulty><difficulty-retargetting>
Why is the maximum target not (2^256 - 1)?
ycshao
# Why is the maximum target not (2^256 - 1)?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-01-06)

I'm reading the [Difficulty](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty) page on the Bitcoin wiki.

Why is the maximum target `0x00000000FFFF0…` instead of `(2^256 - 1)` (i.e. `0xFFFFFFFFFFFF…`)?

**Tags:** difficulty, difficulty-retargetting


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-01-06. Score: 5 | Accepted answer

If the maximum target was 2256-1, every candidate block would be a valid block.

As even the CPU miner in Bitcoin's first software release was capable of doing 100 kH/s or more, this would have led to a very rough start of the chain, with 1000s of blocks produced per second until the difficulty adjusted.

Because of that reason, the maximum target was probably set to a level that would guarantee not too frequent blocks after genesis.


---

