Explain the Concept of ‘Target Difficulty’ in Bitcoin Mining

Target difficulty is a value that sets the threshold for a valid block hash in Bitcoin mining. Miners must find a block header input (the preimage) whose SHA-256 hash is numerically less than or equal to the current target.

This ensures a predictable block generation rate, typically every ten minutes. The difficulty adjusts approximately every two weeks to compensate for changes in the total network hashing power.