About block 961,632
Bitcoin block 961,632 was mined by AntPool on August 8, 2026 at 7:35 PM UTC, 2 min 7 s after block 961,631. That is faster than the 10-minute average the network aims for: blocks come in bursts because finding one is pure chance.
It confirmed 5,612 transactions in 1.97 MB (99.8% of the 4 million weight-unit limit). The median transaction paid 0.00 sat/vB, and all fees added up to 0.0084 BTC. With the 3.125 BTC subsidy of halving era 5, AntPool earned 3.1334 BTC for this block.
Block 961,632 is number 1 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 477; 2,015 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 963,647. The next halving is at block 1,050,000, 88,368 blocks after this one.
Its hash starts with 20 zeros: that is the proof of work, a number below the target that the whole network’s hashrate had to search for. AntPool found 209 blocks in the week before. Today the block has 12,207 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.
Why block 961,632 is notable
Block 961,632 opens difficulty epoch 477. Every 2,016 blocks, each node recalculates the mining difficulty from how long the previous epoch took: if those blocks arrived in less than two weeks, difficulty goes up; if they took longer, it goes down, never by more than a factor of four. The new value, 127,479,855,693,691, took effect with this block, found by AntPool on August 8, 2026 at 7:35 PM UTC, and applies until block 963,647; the following adjustment is at block 963,648.
Nobody schedules a retarget. It happens when the chain reaches the height, so the adjustment at block 961,632 came the moment AntPool found it, not on a fixed date. The rule keeps the average close to one block every ten minutes however much hashrate joins or leaves the network.
Of the 3.133361 BTC that AntPool collected for this block, 3.125 BTC was new subsidy and 0.008361 BTC came from fees, 0.3% of the total; leaving out the coinbase, its 5,611 transactions paid about 149 sats each on average.
Current difficulty epoch and next adjustment →
What’s inside a Bitcoin block
Every block, 961,632 included, is made of the same parts:
- Header
- Eighty bytes that miners hash over and over: the version, the hash of the previous block, the Merkle root that summarises every transaction, a timestamp, the difficulty target in compact form and a nonce. A block is valid when the hash of its header falls below the target.
- Coinbase transaction
- The first transaction, written by the miner. It spends no inputs: it creates the subsidy and collects the fees, and since BIP 34 it must also record the block height.
- Transactions
- Everything else in the block: payments taken from the mempool, usually picked by fee rate because space is capped at 4 million weight units. Block 961,632 holds 5,612, counting the coinbase.
- Fees
- The difference between what each transaction spends and what it creates. The miner claims them in the coinbase; they are the part of the reward set by demand rather than by the protocol.
- Subsidy
- New bitcoin created by the block, fixed by the halving schedule: 50 BTC at the start, halved every 210,000 blocks. At height 961,632 it is 3.125 BTC.