Definition. The Mining Pulse (orange) shows the relative deviation of the observed mean block interval from Bitcoin's target block time of 10 minutes (600 seconds), plotted against price (grey) with reference lines at +20% (green) and -20% (red). It can be considered a measure of how much faster (negative) or slower (positive) blocks are being mined relative to the target block-time of 600s.

Technical. The oscillator is the fractional deviation of the daily mean block interval from target:

• Mining Pulse = (Mean Block Interval - 600s) / 600s

A reading of -0.05 means blocks are arriving 5% faster than target (multiply by 600 to express the deviation in seconds). The +/-20% lines mark historically extreme deviations.

Interpretation.

• Negative values indicate the observed block-time is faster than the target block-time. This usually occurs when hash-rate growth outpaces upward difficulty adjustments, and indicates an expansion of network hashpower is underway.

• Positive values indicate the observed block-time is slower than the target block-time. This usually occurs when hash-rate is slowing down more than downwards difficulty adjustments, and indicates miners are coming offline.

Because difficulty only resets every ~2016 blocks, the Mining Pulse acts as a higher-frequency read on hashrate changes between adjustments — persistent fast blocks foreshadow upwards difficulty adjustments, and persistent slow blocks foreshadow downwards ones.

Notes. Coined by Permabull Niño, 2020. Resource: Mining Pulse: An Exploration Into Block Times & Why They Matter. Built from Block Interval (Mean). See also Difficulty Adjustment Percent Change for the adjustments this oscillator anticipates.