About block 697
Bitcoin block 697 was mined by Unknown on January 16, 2009 at 12:01 PM UTC, 19 min 34 s after block 696. 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 697 is number 698 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 0; 1,318 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 2,015. The next halving is at block 210,000, 209,303 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 971,952 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.