How often does the Bitcoin difficulty adjust?

The Bitcoin difficulty adjusts approximately every 2,016 blocks, which is roughly every two weeks. This adjustment is an integral part of Bitcoin's mining protocol and ensures that new blocks are added to the blockchain at a relatively constant rate, regardless of changes in network hash rate or mining activity.

The difficulty adjustment mechanism is designed to maintain a target block time of approximately 10 minutes. If blocks are being mined faster than this target time, indicating that the network hash rate has increased, the difficulty will increase to make mining more challenging and slow down block production. Conversely, if blocks are being mined slower than the target time, indicating a decrease in network hash rate, the difficulty will decrease to make mining easier and speed up block production.

The adjustment process occurs automatically and is based on the cumulative difficulty of the previous 2,016 blocks. If these blocks were mined faster than the intended 10-minute block time, the difficulty increases. If they were mined slower, the difficulty decreases. This self-regulating mechanism helps to maintain the stability and security of the Bitcoin network by ensuring a consistent rate of block production over time.