# Assessment 17 #### If the hash puzzle takes too long to solve, what will happen to the difficulty? * [ ] The difficulty goes up regardless of the time taken to solve the hash puzzles. * [ ] The difficulty will increase to encourage more powerful miners to commit their hash. * [x] The difficulty will decrease so the same amount of hash power can find a hash puzzle solution quicker. * [ ] The difficulty will stay the same as block time variance is a part of bitcoin's design. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://hub.bsvblockchain.org/higher-learning/bsv-academy/bitcoin-primitives-merkle-trees/merkle-trees-final-assessment/assessment-17.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.