Can more than 1 block be solved per 10 mins on average (LONG TERM)? I am wondering whether it is possible for a supercomputer to find the next 1000 blocks in a very short amount of time. Hypothetically, if a government agency concentrated a supercomputer on hashing, could they solve the next 2016 blocks in a few seconds?


  The difficulty is adjusted every 2016 blocks based on the time it took to find the previous 2016 blocks. At the desired rate of one block each 10 minutes, 2016 blocks would take exactly two weeks to find.


From what I understand from the article on the bitcoin.wiki, the difficulty would scale until 1 block is found every 10 minutes. This leads me to believe that in the long-term no more than 2016 blocks can be found at a rate of more than 1 per 10 minutes.
I  hope I am being clear. I will check for replies tonight.

Thank you so much.
someone /could/ throw a lot of hash power into the system. and until such a time as the difficulty adjusts, they /could/ produce more blocks than one per 10 minutes on average. but difficulty will adjust after one or more 2016-block chunks (note that change in difficulty is capped at a factor of 4 for each 2016 block chunk), until once again even with the new hash power only one block per 10 minutes is produced on average.

so "in the short term" it is possible for someone to produce more blocks than 1 per 10 minutes, but "in the long term" unless they continue adding hash power perpetually, the difficulty will catch up to them.