About block 686
Bitcoin block 686 was mined by Unknown on January 16, 2009 at 9:32 AM UTC, 21 min 28 s after block 685. That is slower than the 10-minute target; long gaps are normal, since every hash attempt is an independent draw with the same tiny chance.
It confirmed 1 transactions in 0.00 MB (0.0% of the 4 million weight-unit limit). The median transaction paid 0.00 sat/vB, and all fees added up to 0.0000 BTC. With the 50.000 BTC subsidy of halving era 1, Unknown earned 50.0000 BTC for this block.
Block 686 is number 687 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 0; 1,329 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 2,015. The next halving is at block 210,000, 209,314 blocks after this one.
Its hash starts with 8 zeros: that is the proof of work, a number below the target that the whole network’s hashrate had to search for. Unknown found 7 blocks in the week before. Today the block has 971,958 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.