How Does the Network’s Difficulty Target Relate to the Energy Expenditure in PoW?

The difficulty target is a threshold value that a block's hash must be less than or equal to for the block to be considered valid. A lower difficulty target means the required hash must start with more zeros, making it much harder to find and demanding more hashing attempts.

Since each hashing attempt requires computational power, a lower difficulty target directly translates to a greater required energy expenditure to find a block.

How Is the “Target Hash” Calculated from the Difficulty Setting?
How Does Mining Difficulty Adjust Based on the SHA-256 Hashing Rate?
How Does a Proof-of-Work Consensus Mechanism Utilize Hashing?
What Is ‘Hashing’ and Its Role in PoW?
How Does the ‘Target’ Value Relate to the Required Hash in Bitcoin Mining?
What Is the Purpose of a “Block Header” in a Blockchain?
How Does Difficulty Relate to the Energy Consumption of PoW?
What Is the Specific Mathematical Problem Solved by Miners in Bitcoin’s PoW?

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