What are timestamps and difficulty target ?

[arnav029]

So I came across these two terms , timestamps and difficulty target in a blockchain , and did not get the exact meaning of it.
Googled it , but did not get the concept of timestamps , and difficulty target was defined as the measure of difficulty to mine that block , but how can we measure it?
Wanted to know the concepts of these two , in simple language as possible.

[othaime-en]

Hello @arnav029 block timestamps are simply the time the block was mined or created. It exists to help improve the authenticity and verifiability of a block. The timestamp usually exist in the form of seconds since epoch (a common format if you've worked with time in javascript).
Concerning target difficulty, it mostly applies to blockchains that use proof-of-work as their consensus algorithm. Think of proof of work as giving miners a mathematical equation (in real life it mostly cryptographic computations) to solve to get the nonce that gets added to the block. However in this context, this "equation" requires computing power to solve. So an easy equation would mean a low difficulty while a complex equation would mean high difficulty. A common "equation" or task given to miners is for example, they are told to compute a hash string that starts with six zeros for example 0x000000fad6b6c6s8890sffsecabdcsca Finding this specific hash takes a lot of computation power so this is what miners struggle to be the first to find. In this context, increasing difficulty would be to say we want the hash to start with ten zeros instead of six. So it would be 0x0000000000fad6b6c6s8890sffsecabdcsca. This requires even more computational power as compared to the one with six zeros.
This is a crude explanation but I hope you get the idea. If you still have any doubts, feel free to ask.

[arnav029]

Okay , got the thing thanks!

[othaime-en]

@alymurtazamemon close this.

[krakxn]

Timestamps are used to measure the time elapsed between subsequent blocks, as well as a specific-checkpointing scheme in PoSH and PoH protocols.

Difficulty is primarily concerned with PoW protocols; the difficulty refers to how hard it is to mine that block. The difficulty is automated and decided by an algorithm--which takes into account the time elapsed between subsequent blocks.

For instance,

First scenario: If Block-1 was mined ~10 mins ago, therefore, the difficulty of the next block will be moderate.

Second: If Block-1 was mined ~1 hour ago, this signifies that the next block will be comparatively very easy.

So, the longer the time elapsed between subsequent blocks, the easier the difficulty and vice-versa for a shorter time elapsed.